Disclaimer: So sorry for not including this earlier! Mutant X et al belong to Tribune entertainment (I think) And Anita Blake, and the book Lunatic Café belongs to Laurell K Hamilton. The picture on the cover was done by Steve Stone and the books are published by Orbit um yeah not making any money out of this! (unfortunately)

AN: This next part has been inspired by Paper Piece's fanfic: "How could this be normal". Kinda lost the action/adventure genre for a while. It might return later, but for now it's pure angst and a lot of talking. I make some pretty big assumptions about Shalimar and Adam's past and I'm sure it will all be disproved at some point in the show, but still that's fanfiction for you.

Emma sobbed softly, trying not to awaken Shalimar. As soon as they had returned to the Sanctuary Adam had confirmed what Emma had discovered after Shalimar had passed out of consciousness. She had been almost three months pregnant, but the antidote to the virus that had spread among the feral population like wildfire had caused her to have a miscarriage.

She had been responsible for the death of Shalimar's child.

No one could have known the affect the antidote would have on a foetus, but Emma could not help but blame herself. She had been there; she should have understood Shalimar's need for protection, her reaction to the antidote, her struggle to get away from them. She should have known. She started as she heard a whimper from the bed. Shalimar was awake. Standing from the corner she had fallen into having heard the news confirmed, she moved to the feral's side.

"Shalimar, shhh. You're safe now."

"It's gone." She moaned, leaving Emma in no doubt about what she was referring to.

"I'm so sorry Shalimar. I am so sorry." Struggling to hide her tears, Emma turned away. When she turned back Shalimar had rolled over and had her back to her. Blocking her out. The shaking of her shoulders exposed her tears, an action Shalimar had always striven to hide from her friends. Something that always made it more worrying when she cried in front of them. Leaving her friend to grieve Emma went to inform Adam she had woken up. Alone in the medical lab Shalimar's heart broke as she thought of what she had lost and she screamed her anguish to the room. She wished she could resign herself to the feral, for everything had been so simple when she was without control.

She had been happy.

Emma woke as a wave of intense grief washed over her. Knowing the emotions were not her own it didn't take her long to identify who they did belong to. She dressed quickly; hoping that the break in Shalimar's tightly contained emotions would allow them to talk. The last week of complete silence from her had disturbed the psionic, and she knew that in her current state of mind the feral would need support and explanations.

It took her several minutes to find Shalimar. She was not in her room or in any of her normal haunts. She had not entered the open space of the main hallway and gym since she had returned home, so she had not thought to check the raised holographic gym. She did not see her at first, but she could hear her keening. Coming level with the gym a hologram was revealed to her. Standing in the middle of the holographic panel was a tall man. His hair was dark and short, his dress neat. He looked like a businessman heading for a board meeting. The Holograph was not attacking, just standing, although looking down upon someone. Advancing up the shallow wooden steps she found the object of his observations. The feral was curled in one corner, wrapped almost double on herself. She was shaking violently and sobs occasionally wracked her thin form. Sitting quietly beside her Emma waited for her presence to be acknowledged.

Now that she had been cleaned up Shalimar was beginning to look a little more like the woman they remembered and a little less than a starved and out of control feral. As she looked she could see that the time away from them had been hard on her. She was startlingly thin, her waist looking as if she could circle it with her hands. Bruises and recent scars covered much of her body that was visible past the loose T-shirt and leggings she wore. A vicious line of claw marks disappeared over her shoulder, continuing beyond the level of the shirt and down her back. Her arms were a mass of bruises, pale skin only just visible between them and a scar in her hairline had worried Adam for the potential of a concussion left untreated.

They had all known Shalimar had been the first affected by the virus, almost six months ago. She had been the first host for the virus, which affected the nervous system, suppressing all of the more human instincts and allowing the feral side to run wild and unrestrained. They had feared for her life when twelve of the seventeen ferals they had managed to recapture had died from the effects of the virus. She had been too strong and well trained for them to capture, a close call resulting in a broken arm for Jesse and a beautiful pattern of scars down the side of Emma's face. A blood work taken then, from all available blood left on the scene, told Adam that her death from the virus was imminent.

When Emma had received a chaos of emotions almost two months later none of them had dared believe she might be right when she speculated that they might be from Shalimar.

But She was here.

And she was safe now, all traces of the virus being wiped from her system as they watched. Her eyes would be the last things to change back. For now they retained the yellow iris and slit pupil of the cats who had given her the feral genes. Eventually they would slide apart as she had seen so many times to reveal the chocolate brown eyes that were all her own, but for now they were a reminder of what they had nearly lost her to.

"When I was younger; before Adam found me, I was completely feral." Lost in her own thoughts Emma had not seen Shalimar turn to her, her back now against the curved gym walls. "I hunted, lived, breathed animal. I didn't speak, I didn't read, I didn't care how I looked or how people thought of me. I was an animal and things like that they don't mean anything to them." Shalimar let out a sigh, not sure about what she was about to say to her friend. Not sure how she would react. "And I killed. Anything, anyone that got in my way. Because it felt natural. Because there was a thrill in knowing you are strong enough or fast enough or smart enough to kill. I didn't kill for food, I knew I couldn't eat that I just did it because it was fun. An adrenaline rush.

"I tried to kill Adam. Has he ever told you that? Eckheart pointed me in his direction not that I knew it at the time. I would have never followed anyone's orders then. I was so angry when he caught me. He was just this puny little man and he had caught me. He locked me in one of the rooms and let me wreck it. Then let me out and tried out all his safety protocols on me. I got so angry with him I would stand and rage at him from behind some force field he had erected. Eventually I stopped trying to escape and he started teaching me things. Without making it obvious or letting me know he was doing it. Things stopped being quite as simple. One day I sat there and watched him write the next program. And I saw him leave a fault in it. I don't know whether or not he was testing me or he really didn't know how much I'd learned from him. I got past all of his tricks and into the garage and drove off in one of his cars. I stopped about half an hour away from what was the sanctuary and looked back. It took me that long to realise I was driving in the wrong direction.

"When I got back Adam was waiting with the ring. I've never looked back again. It was a part of me that I never wanted to see again. I hid it away and forced my feral side away from me. Tried to control what it thought, when it reacted. 'The beast does not control me, I control myself.' It was a chant Adam made me use when it looked like I was loosing control. I spent a year trying to work out whether Laurell K Hamilton had been one of Adam's new mutants, a feral he had help regain control. Turns out he just read her books, too." She chuckled hoarsely at the old memory. "I didn't want my beast to be a part of me, but I needed it. And then I lost control again and"

"Shalimar, you couldn't have controlled what you did, it was the virus" Emma was silenced by a wave of Shalimar's hand.

"This." She traced a line along the side of Emma's face; the pale scars from the scratches she had given her when trying to escape, clear under the electric light. "I gave you this didn't I?" Emma nodded dumbly, unsure about what Shalimar was saying. "Did you ever feel threatened by me when I hurt you? Did I ever threaten your life?"

"No, You were only trying to get away from us. You would never have hurt us more than you had to, to get away. You were trying to protect yourself. You thought we were a threat. I could see you didn't want to hurt us, it was in your eyes."

"That's the difference between my feral side and my human side."

"I don't understand."

"If I had been like I was before; I would have killed you, all of you, just to prove that I could. The feral side of me doesn't need to kill, Emma. It isn't some primal instinct. Without me, human me, influencing my actions the feral me lived one of the happiest lives I've ever lived.

"It was me, human me that killed those people. I was stronger, faster, and more intelligent that all of them put together and I wanted to prove it to the world. Animals don't do that. They don't need to. They kill for food and protection. Not for fun. When I was truly feral all I thought about was food, sleep, staying safe having children

"As a human I killed and then I tried to force away the only thing that can keep me on the ground. My feral side. The virus was the first thing to put my soul at rest." Uncurling her hand from her side Shalimar revealed a small vial full of a bright red liquid, and Emma gasped at the sight of it. It was the virus. "This can take me back."

OK, there's going to be another chapter of angst like this and then things might start happening again. Don't give up on me yet!