Disclaimer: I don't own it, I don't pretend to own it, and I don't mean to offend anyone's sensibilities.
Thank You: Stelmarta for being there! Mom because I love her!
Spoilers: A Breed Apart
"Hey! Emma!"
"Yeah, what is it Adam?"
"C'mere for a sec."
Emma shrugged at Jesse, who'd been meditating with her, before gracefully gliding to her feet and climbing the stars to Adam's lab. "What do you need?"
"When Liz went all whacko over the fire thing, what did you sense about the fear?"
"What do you mean? The fear was so…total. It's kind of hard to quantify something that… primal."
"So it was primal?"
"Yes," she said slowly, "Fear itself is a very primal emotion. I imagine it was even worse, because she's a feral and not only are emotions more primal in ferals, but they also have an intense instinctive fear of fire to begin with."
"Can instinct like that be overcome?"
"Sure, we do it a lot. Humans have an instinctive fear of heights. Put a baby on a glass table top and it'll cry instinctively, but we ride in glass elevators all the time and skydive out of planes for fun. Same thing for soldiers or secret service agents, there is an instinctive fear of being shot. People run from bullets. The instructors have to train them to overcome the fear and run towards the bullets." She paced over to a chair in the center of the lab, "You're not thinking of trying to re-train Liz and Shalimar to tolerate fire are you? Feral fears are different, it's like a phobia. It's way too intense."
"Liz, maybe. Shalimar definitely not. I was going over the test results of the genetic re-sequencing procedure. I compared it to Shal's genetic structure, just for backup, and found some…interesting discrepancies." He projected two helixical sections of DNA, color coded for each chemical, onto the wall of the lab. "These genes are the, well, 'instinct' genes. They basically allow the feral to use the inherent feelings of the animal DNA to augment the physical ability."
Emma nodded; you couldn't be a new mutant without having at least a pedestrian understanding of basic genetics. "They're different"
"Yes, very different. On impulse I pulled up the rest of the genetic sequences. Look at Liz and Shal and Brennan all side by side" He pulled up the appropriate genetic strands.
"Wow. That's really interesting."
"Isn't it? Shal and Brennan have almost the exact opposite. She's a C-T-T-G and he's a G-A-A-G. Her instinct is flight, his is fight."
"She runs because she can't control it, he can, so he fights it."
"Exactly, but look at Liz. She's a G-T-A-G. Not quite one and not quite the other. I noticed the difference when I was cleaning up the genes. I'm thinking that her fear isn't instinctive, it's conditioned. She's afraid because she expects to be afraid, but she can control it."
"You want me to try to break the conditioning?"
"Your specialty is emotions, isn't that what it's all about?"
"Those emotions are pretty damn intense. She's terrified out of her mind over it. How do you plan to sell this Liz? There's no way she'll want to confront it Fear of fear is also pretty instinctive."
"Actually, I was hoping you could do it. I don't think I'm high on her list of favorite people right now." Adam looked a bit sheepish.
"You want me to do it?"
"Please?" He looked into her eyes intensely. She opened the tight fist of her mind, just a bit. That he was sincere, she had no doubt, but she probed delicately into the 'why' of this decision.
"Why, Adam? Why now?" From the probing, intense look on her face, he knew that she could spot a lie a mile away.
"I think I've upset her," he took a deep breath "I know I upset her, I just want to give something back. I owe her a lot."
"Adam," Emma said sweetly, putting both elbows on the lab table and gazing intently into his eyes "Let's get one thing straight, you may owe her something, but these feelings have nothing to do with gratitude." She smiled, just as sweetly, when her fearless leader flushed a bright red at her words.
"Well, um, that too"
"Yeah, lots of 'that'." She grinned, "You know I'd never break a confidence Adam, especially to a friend. So let's say as counselor to team leader, I would suggest that two of the team members are having some difficulties with a bit of, let me say it's miscommunication, alright? This miscommunication is having a profound impact on their personal relationship. I would defiantly recommend, that they speak to one another about this, quickly." Her eyes twinkled, "and I'm not talking about Shalimar and Brennan"
"So Liz isn't mad at me?"
"No, Liz is mad at you, but for a reason very different than the one you're thinking about, Ok?"
"What do you mean?"
"Talk to her Adam, get it out in the open."
"Emma…"
"That's all I'm going to say. And I'll say it to her, too. Talk to each other."
"You want me to what!" she was basking on the rock in the middle of the indoor pond. Dusk was beginning to fall outside. In other words, it was perfect timing to spring this on Liz. I was just before she was fully awake, but not so asleep that she couldn't concentrate appropriately.
"Just listen ok? Adam cleaned up your genetic structure pretty well, you're as much elemental as you are feral now, and it used to be the other way around. We were looking at it and it dawned on us that the fear of fire is no longer instinctive anymore because you're element is as powerful as the feral. I think he wants to use it as an ace in the hole against Gabriel. But before that happens you need to get over the fear"
"Not in this lifetime" she sat up, and scooted off the rock to stand across from Emma, confrontationally.
"You're not a pure feral anymore, you're a hybrid. Use it to your advantage." Emma tried to appeal to the doctor in Liz. That was the eminently practical nature of a trauma medic; to use everything you have to the utmost of its potential. She could tell it was working by the thoughtful, slightly interested look in her eyes.
"What, exactly, would this de-conditioning entail?"
"I'd just get you used to seeing flames, controlled flame like a candle. Then we could graduate up to lighting a match, lighting a candle, maybe a campfire or a bar-b-que. Then we could see what the limitations and possibilities you've got as an elemental."
"What does Adam have to say about this?"
"It was his idea."
"Then why isn't he here to persuade me of this?"
"He thinks that because you're mad at him, you wouldn't take him seriously."
"Smart man."
"Not really, if you two got into it over the fire thing it might just end up clearing the air over whatever's between you two."
"You know what's between us."
"He doesn't. He still thinks it's because he put himself in the position of saying 'no' not the actual saying 'no' itself"
"Idiot"
"Tell him" from the skeptical look she got back Emma could tell that this approach wasn't working "Or slap him if you prefer, just do something other than glare at him across the dinner table" this idea was met with a bit more relish than the other. Emma sighed; Adam was in for a bit of a shock. "I got a candle in my room. We're going to go deal with this fear thing one way or the other."
"Do we have to?"
"Yes"
Liz grumbled, but followed in Emma's wake.
"Hey! Adam!" Brennan called out at he ran up the stairs, "Wait up!"
"Brennan, "Adam smiled "What's up."
"Yeah, um, listen. Shal's getting a little cabin fever, if you get my drift, and I was wondering if you wouldn't mind letting us go out a little tonight."
"Brennan, I really don't want anyone leaving Sanctuary. Especially with Gabriel running loose the way he's been"
"C'mon Adam, Gabriel's up to his neck trying to get the government off of his back for the mall incident, besides, it's not like Shal and I would be asking questions or breaking down doors or anything like that. Just one night out on the town Adam, please?"
"Brennan…" he said warningly.
"It'll give you a chance to talk to Liz" Adam immediately tensed up. Brennan tried another tack. "Listen I've been talking to Shalimar, who's talked to Liz and…"
Why does everyone all of a sudden find my personal life to be of overpowering interest?" Adam exploded furiously, "It's none of your business!"
"Yeah it is," Brennan said softly, "We all care about you Adam. We want things to be perfect for you. We get worried if you're not happy. Until Liz came around you didn't even have a personal life, that's wasn't real healthy." He gave a self-deprecating laugh, "I should be the one talking, but listen to me I think you want to hear this."
"What is it?" Adam said impatiently.
"She's not mad at you for trying to take advantage of her while she was out of it, she's mad at you for not taking advantage of her while she was out of it."
"What!" He could hardly believe what he was hearing.
"Jesus, Adam what else can I say without being really nasty? She wanted you to…y'know. You kinda offended her, I mean she hasn't seen a guy for twenty years and the first one she does see pushes her right back into her bedroom? It hurt her feelings, she's been whining about you to Shalimar ever since."
"She was drunk!"
"She wasn't that drunk." Brennan started to feel uncomfortable talking about Adam's sex life; the man was practically his father. "Just apologize, it'll be Ok. Can we go now?"
"Sure, go ahead."
Adam dropped back into his chair. She was mad at him for saying 'no'? He knew Liz, or at least he thought he knew Liz, she didn't just try to drag just anyone into her room. She didn't drag anyone to her room as far as he could remember. Why him? Did she…like him? Like in a 'thinking about him on a permanent kind of candlelight dinners and flowers and backrubs' way. They had always been comfortable around each other, she'd never been intimidated by his intellect or abilities, heck she'd never been intimidated by anything. He'd had a horrible crush on her, but he was positively certain she'd never felt like that about him. Or had she? He had to find out. He was halfway to her room when he remembered that she wasn't going to be waking up for another hour or so. Thinking that getting a woman out of a sound sleep to ask her if she had feelings about him wasn't a good idea, Adam thought of something else.
