Faith
Rating: PG-13 Summary: When Emma disappears from Sanctuary, Adam vows to get her back. Pairing: Adam/Emma Author's Note: This story breaks continuity with the show after The Future is Revealed.
Disclaimer: I don't own Mutant X or any of its characters. I'm just borrowing them to have some fun with for a little while.
Chapter 5:
Emma stared up into Adam's face, into those warm eyes of his, staring at her with such love and concern, and she remembered everything. It was overwhelming. She felt like a newborn baby, thrust into a new and strange world. Her emotions were such a maelstrom they blocked out everyone else's. The first thing she felt was a powerful love. The kind of love that made you feel as though you could fly. "Adam?" She threw her arms around his neck and hugged him to her, clinging to him like a life preserver. "Adam, I do remember us! I do!"
Adam hugged her tightly, and she felt the tension go out of his muscles.
She basked in his love. She'd always felt safe in his arms, and she felt safe now. Flashes of memory came to her as clear as if they were happening all over again. Emma bringing Adam a cup of coffee in the lab, massaging his shoulders to work out a tension knot. Adam pulling her to him for a kiss. The two of them dancing in the candlelight at Sanctuary, to a Natalie Cole CD. She kept making him play one song over and over again: "Our Love Is Here to Stay." Adam holding her hand as they walked out of the movie theater the night they told the others they were sifting through old library archives. The way Adam put his coat around her shoulders when they stepped out into the cold night, and he realized her sweater wasn't warm enough. The two of them making love in his bed, in her bed, in the shower. She vividly remembered the salty taste of his skin and the smell of his aftershave, the way his curls felt when they were damp after a shower, the tiny chest hairs she loved to play with while they lay entwined together in the wee hours of the morning. This is the man I love, she thought. "I love you so much," she said aloud.
"I love you, too, Em." He squeezed her a little tighter.
Then the memories of the past three days flooded through her memory. Every conversation, every action, everything that had happened from the moment she'd bumped into Michael at the coffeehouse to now. It was like a nightmare. Tears formed in her eyes, and she pulled away from Adam. "Oh my God!" She looked over toward Michael, then back at Adam. "What have I done?"
Adam stroked her face. "It wasn't you, sweetheart. It was nothing you could control."
"But I-" She covered her mouth with her hand and fought the urge to throw up. She began shaking uncontrollably. Then she turned on Michael. Michael, whom she had been kind to years ago, Michael, who had said he was her friend. . . ."You. How could you?" Rage bubbled up in her.
Michael wore a look of panic. "Emma, I only wanted a chance to show you how much I could love you, that I could make you happy-"
"You raped me!" she screamed. "You knew I loved Adam! I told you I was in love! And instead of being happy for me, you suppressed my memories of Adam, you made me think I was in love with you, and then you brought me here and-" She couldn't finish. The words were as unspeakable as the deed.
"I never meant to hurt you, Emma. Please," Michael pleaded. "You've got to believe me. You had so little when I knew you, and I thought you'd be happy with this life, if you could only learn to love me. I mean, how much could you have loved him if I could so easily make you forget him?"
"Shut up! Just shut up! You never could have made me forget about Adam if you hadn't sucker punched me. My guard was down because I thought you were a friend! I thought I could trust you!"
Dale Vincent, whose normally tan skin had taken on an ashen pallor, spoke. "Michael-is this true? Did you use your powers on her?"
Michael seemed to shrink inside his own skin. He nodded. His shoulders sagged. Emma felt a sense of relief emanate from him, like he was glad the charade was over.
"What should we do with him?" Brennan asked. His lips were curled back in a snarl. It was obvious what he wanted to do with Michael: Send a few thousand volts of electricity through him.
"What do you mean, do with him?" Dale regained some of his composure. "You should be worried about what's going to happen to all of you, taking my son and me hostage. What are you going to do, go to the police and say he used his telempathic powers to subdue the young woman? You certainly couldn't say he was holding her here against her will otherwise, because every member of my staff would testify that she seemed quite happy to be here. That would raise a lot of questions about your mutants that you don't want raised, Adam."
The Mutant X team stared at him in outrage. He continued, "Don't think I'm insensitive to the situation, though. I'll call off my people and let you go unharmed, if you let my son go unharmed."
"That's up to Emma," Adam said in a quiet voice. "Emma?"
Emma stared at Michael, wanting him dead, and thinking how easy it would be. . . .But they didn't kill people wantonly. That wasn't what Mutant X was all about, and it would damage everything Adam had worked for. Maybe I should let Brennan zap him, she thought.
All the while, Michael shrank back further away from her. He tried one last time to send her a false emotion. She was ready for it, and deflected it as easily as swatting a fly. Emma grew calmer, realizing that now that she knew what Michael Vincent was like, he could never again gain the upper hand over her. His powers were strong, but hers were stronger. Stronger than anyone but her knew. And his powers were weakened from days of trying to control her emotions and memories.
There was only one punishment short of death fitting for what Michael had done to her. Emma closed her eyes and opened herself up completely. She could feel the fear and love and concern and anger that surrounded her in the room, and the alarm of the security guards outside. Suddenly, she opened her eyes and sent a psionic blast at Michael that literally knocked him off his feet. He landed on the floor in a daze.
"Emma?" Adam looked from Michael to her with an expression of astonishment on his face.
"Michael!" Mr. Vincent ran over and knelt by his son. "What have you done to him?"
"I've done you both a favor," Emma replied coldly. "When he wakes up, Michael's not going to remember he's a telempath. He's not going to remember me at all. Not that we were friends, and nothing that happened this week. And he's going to have a mother of a headache for the next few days."
Brennan looked reluctantly satisfied, Jesse looked surprised and impressed, and Shalimar grinned at Emma.
"Why is that doing me a favor?" Dale asked, still shaken.
"Do you think I'm the only one he's been manipulating?" Emma said. "He may have saved the big guns for me, but he's been manipulating you his whole life. He hated both of his stepmothers; he told me so. You think your marriages fell apart on their own? Think again. They had a lot of help from Michael."
Dale slowly stood, facing them. He looked down at his son and only heir. "I always wondered. . . ." he began. "Maybe this is for the best," he conceded.
"Are we going to have trouble when we leave, Dale?" Adam asked.
Dale shook his head, defeated. He opened the door and the guards began to press in. "Stand down! Everything's under control. Our guests are leaving now. Get Dr. Zeddig here right away. My son. . .fainted." He turned and gave Adam the look of a man who has been trumped.
Adam took Emma's hand in his and led her out the door, followed by the others.
* * * * * "How do you think she's doing?" Jesse asked no one in particular. He, Shalimar, and Brennan were slumped on various pieces of furniture in the lounge.
"Right now, terrible. In time, she'll get better. With Adam's help. I know what it's like to have someone get into your head when you don't want them there-thanks to Gabriel-but it wasn't just Emma's head Michael got into." She left the rest unsaid, knowing it didn't need saying. "She's going to need time."
"I still think she went too easy on the creep." Brennan played with a tiny bolt of electricity he had created between his fingers. "I'd have crisped him."
"I'd have phased him halfway through that brick wall and left him there," Jesse added.
"It wasn't your call. It was Emma's." Shal glanced down the hall toward the bedrooms, thinking of her friend.
* * * * *
Emma and Adam lay curled up on her bed together. She was in a robe, having showered for nearly half an hour when they got back, trying to wash all traces of Michael off her. Adam held her secure in his arms and stroked her damp hair soothingly. She clung to his warmth, reminding herself of what was real in her life. Adam was real. Adam's love for her and her love for him was real. "I wonder how many other girls he did that to?"
"What makes you think there were others?"
Emma stared at the opposite wall. "His father said something about me being the first girlfriend he'd brought home who seemed right for him. I wonder what happened to the others?"
"Well, he won't be doing that to anyone else again. I got a message when we got back from Dale Vincent. It looks like he didn't trust your solution to the Michael problem. He turned his son over to Eckhart. They put him in a stasis pod."
Emma pulled back long enough to look at him in surprise. "Normally, I wouldn't wish that fate on anyone. But in this case, I can't say I'm sorry."
"Neither can I." Adam's tone was sad, though.
Emma's eyes stayed on his face, lined from the cares of the past week, knowing she was responsible for most of those cares. He was such a good man. "I'm so sorry. I should have been stronger. I never should've let my guard down."
Adam reached for her, and brushed her hair back out of her face. "No, don't you ever feel sorry for that. You shouldn't have to go through life with your guard constantly up, wondering if someone's going to take advantage of you. This was not your fault. You're stronger than anyone I know, Emma. You're also the most compassionate person I know. Never lose that quality. It's what makes you special."
"When I think of how I let him touch me," she began, shuddering, "it makes me sick. I love you, Adam, I never would've betrayed you like that if--"
Adam's voice grew thick with emotion. "You did not betray me. He forced himself on you. It was telempathic rape. You were the victim, sweetheart. Do not blame yourself. Blame him."
Emma began crying softly, and Adam took her in an embrace again. "Remember what you told me, that night you came to me in the gym? That I shouldn't beat myself up? That I was a good person? Well, you're best person I know. And you're strong. You'll get through this. We'll get through this together."
"Promise?"
"I promise. Have faith in me. In us."
She rested her head on his shoulder and wrapped her arm around him, hugging him tightly. "I do, Adam. I always have, and I always will."
THE END
Rating: PG-13 Summary: When Emma disappears from Sanctuary, Adam vows to get her back. Pairing: Adam/Emma Author's Note: This story breaks continuity with the show after The Future is Revealed.
Disclaimer: I don't own Mutant X or any of its characters. I'm just borrowing them to have some fun with for a little while.
Chapter 5:
Emma stared up into Adam's face, into those warm eyes of his, staring at her with such love and concern, and she remembered everything. It was overwhelming. She felt like a newborn baby, thrust into a new and strange world. Her emotions were such a maelstrom they blocked out everyone else's. The first thing she felt was a powerful love. The kind of love that made you feel as though you could fly. "Adam?" She threw her arms around his neck and hugged him to her, clinging to him like a life preserver. "Adam, I do remember us! I do!"
Adam hugged her tightly, and she felt the tension go out of his muscles.
She basked in his love. She'd always felt safe in his arms, and she felt safe now. Flashes of memory came to her as clear as if they were happening all over again. Emma bringing Adam a cup of coffee in the lab, massaging his shoulders to work out a tension knot. Adam pulling her to him for a kiss. The two of them dancing in the candlelight at Sanctuary, to a Natalie Cole CD. She kept making him play one song over and over again: "Our Love Is Here to Stay." Adam holding her hand as they walked out of the movie theater the night they told the others they were sifting through old library archives. The way Adam put his coat around her shoulders when they stepped out into the cold night, and he realized her sweater wasn't warm enough. The two of them making love in his bed, in her bed, in the shower. She vividly remembered the salty taste of his skin and the smell of his aftershave, the way his curls felt when they were damp after a shower, the tiny chest hairs she loved to play with while they lay entwined together in the wee hours of the morning. This is the man I love, she thought. "I love you so much," she said aloud.
"I love you, too, Em." He squeezed her a little tighter.
Then the memories of the past three days flooded through her memory. Every conversation, every action, everything that had happened from the moment she'd bumped into Michael at the coffeehouse to now. It was like a nightmare. Tears formed in her eyes, and she pulled away from Adam. "Oh my God!" She looked over toward Michael, then back at Adam. "What have I done?"
Adam stroked her face. "It wasn't you, sweetheart. It was nothing you could control."
"But I-" She covered her mouth with her hand and fought the urge to throw up. She began shaking uncontrollably. Then she turned on Michael. Michael, whom she had been kind to years ago, Michael, who had said he was her friend. . . ."You. How could you?" Rage bubbled up in her.
Michael wore a look of panic. "Emma, I only wanted a chance to show you how much I could love you, that I could make you happy-"
"You raped me!" she screamed. "You knew I loved Adam! I told you I was in love! And instead of being happy for me, you suppressed my memories of Adam, you made me think I was in love with you, and then you brought me here and-" She couldn't finish. The words were as unspeakable as the deed.
"I never meant to hurt you, Emma. Please," Michael pleaded. "You've got to believe me. You had so little when I knew you, and I thought you'd be happy with this life, if you could only learn to love me. I mean, how much could you have loved him if I could so easily make you forget him?"
"Shut up! Just shut up! You never could have made me forget about Adam if you hadn't sucker punched me. My guard was down because I thought you were a friend! I thought I could trust you!"
Dale Vincent, whose normally tan skin had taken on an ashen pallor, spoke. "Michael-is this true? Did you use your powers on her?"
Michael seemed to shrink inside his own skin. He nodded. His shoulders sagged. Emma felt a sense of relief emanate from him, like he was glad the charade was over.
"What should we do with him?" Brennan asked. His lips were curled back in a snarl. It was obvious what he wanted to do with Michael: Send a few thousand volts of electricity through him.
"What do you mean, do with him?" Dale regained some of his composure. "You should be worried about what's going to happen to all of you, taking my son and me hostage. What are you going to do, go to the police and say he used his telempathic powers to subdue the young woman? You certainly couldn't say he was holding her here against her will otherwise, because every member of my staff would testify that she seemed quite happy to be here. That would raise a lot of questions about your mutants that you don't want raised, Adam."
The Mutant X team stared at him in outrage. He continued, "Don't think I'm insensitive to the situation, though. I'll call off my people and let you go unharmed, if you let my son go unharmed."
"That's up to Emma," Adam said in a quiet voice. "Emma?"
Emma stared at Michael, wanting him dead, and thinking how easy it would be. . . .But they didn't kill people wantonly. That wasn't what Mutant X was all about, and it would damage everything Adam had worked for. Maybe I should let Brennan zap him, she thought.
All the while, Michael shrank back further away from her. He tried one last time to send her a false emotion. She was ready for it, and deflected it as easily as swatting a fly. Emma grew calmer, realizing that now that she knew what Michael Vincent was like, he could never again gain the upper hand over her. His powers were strong, but hers were stronger. Stronger than anyone but her knew. And his powers were weakened from days of trying to control her emotions and memories.
There was only one punishment short of death fitting for what Michael had done to her. Emma closed her eyes and opened herself up completely. She could feel the fear and love and concern and anger that surrounded her in the room, and the alarm of the security guards outside. Suddenly, she opened her eyes and sent a psionic blast at Michael that literally knocked him off his feet. He landed on the floor in a daze.
"Emma?" Adam looked from Michael to her with an expression of astonishment on his face.
"Michael!" Mr. Vincent ran over and knelt by his son. "What have you done to him?"
"I've done you both a favor," Emma replied coldly. "When he wakes up, Michael's not going to remember he's a telempath. He's not going to remember me at all. Not that we were friends, and nothing that happened this week. And he's going to have a mother of a headache for the next few days."
Brennan looked reluctantly satisfied, Jesse looked surprised and impressed, and Shalimar grinned at Emma.
"Why is that doing me a favor?" Dale asked, still shaken.
"Do you think I'm the only one he's been manipulating?" Emma said. "He may have saved the big guns for me, but he's been manipulating you his whole life. He hated both of his stepmothers; he told me so. You think your marriages fell apart on their own? Think again. They had a lot of help from Michael."
Dale slowly stood, facing them. He looked down at his son and only heir. "I always wondered. . . ." he began. "Maybe this is for the best," he conceded.
"Are we going to have trouble when we leave, Dale?" Adam asked.
Dale shook his head, defeated. He opened the door and the guards began to press in. "Stand down! Everything's under control. Our guests are leaving now. Get Dr. Zeddig here right away. My son. . .fainted." He turned and gave Adam the look of a man who has been trumped.
Adam took Emma's hand in his and led her out the door, followed by the others.
* * * * * "How do you think she's doing?" Jesse asked no one in particular. He, Shalimar, and Brennan were slumped on various pieces of furniture in the lounge.
"Right now, terrible. In time, she'll get better. With Adam's help. I know what it's like to have someone get into your head when you don't want them there-thanks to Gabriel-but it wasn't just Emma's head Michael got into." She left the rest unsaid, knowing it didn't need saying. "She's going to need time."
"I still think she went too easy on the creep." Brennan played with a tiny bolt of electricity he had created between his fingers. "I'd have crisped him."
"I'd have phased him halfway through that brick wall and left him there," Jesse added.
"It wasn't your call. It was Emma's." Shal glanced down the hall toward the bedrooms, thinking of her friend.
* * * * *
Emma and Adam lay curled up on her bed together. She was in a robe, having showered for nearly half an hour when they got back, trying to wash all traces of Michael off her. Adam held her secure in his arms and stroked her damp hair soothingly. She clung to his warmth, reminding herself of what was real in her life. Adam was real. Adam's love for her and her love for him was real. "I wonder how many other girls he did that to?"
"What makes you think there were others?"
Emma stared at the opposite wall. "His father said something about me being the first girlfriend he'd brought home who seemed right for him. I wonder what happened to the others?"
"Well, he won't be doing that to anyone else again. I got a message when we got back from Dale Vincent. It looks like he didn't trust your solution to the Michael problem. He turned his son over to Eckhart. They put him in a stasis pod."
Emma pulled back long enough to look at him in surprise. "Normally, I wouldn't wish that fate on anyone. But in this case, I can't say I'm sorry."
"Neither can I." Adam's tone was sad, though.
Emma's eyes stayed on his face, lined from the cares of the past week, knowing she was responsible for most of those cares. He was such a good man. "I'm so sorry. I should have been stronger. I never should've let my guard down."
Adam reached for her, and brushed her hair back out of her face. "No, don't you ever feel sorry for that. You shouldn't have to go through life with your guard constantly up, wondering if someone's going to take advantage of you. This was not your fault. You're stronger than anyone I know, Emma. You're also the most compassionate person I know. Never lose that quality. It's what makes you special."
"When I think of how I let him touch me," she began, shuddering, "it makes me sick. I love you, Adam, I never would've betrayed you like that if--"
Adam's voice grew thick with emotion. "You did not betray me. He forced himself on you. It was telempathic rape. You were the victim, sweetheart. Do not blame yourself. Blame him."
Emma began crying softly, and Adam took her in an embrace again. "Remember what you told me, that night you came to me in the gym? That I shouldn't beat myself up? That I was a good person? Well, you're best person I know. And you're strong. You'll get through this. We'll get through this together."
"Promise?"
"I promise. Have faith in me. In us."
She rested her head on his shoulder and wrapped her arm around him, hugging him tightly. "I do, Adam. I always have, and I always will."
THE END