Author's Notes: This is a follow up to "Hard Time", so spoilers abound here!
I was pleased to see reconciliation between Jesse and Brennan, but considering how much the two of them keep inside, I figured that it wasn't going to be that easy
Disclaimer: The characters and the show of "Mutant X" belong to the writers and producers and their companies. I don't own the team and no copyright infringement or profit is intended with this story.
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Release
By Laura Reeve
Jesse heard Adam come into the computer lab. Completely focused, the young man's fingers moved swiftly across the keyboard while his eyes swept the screen's contents. He knew Adam was there, but concentrated on finishing his task. After a couple of minutes, the scientist finally perched on a stool next to Jesse.
"Nothing new on that new mutant we heard about last week. What's up, Adam?" Jesse asked, never taking his eyes from his work.
With a sigh, Adam rested his chin on his hands, elbows on the table. "How're you doing?"
"Okay." Jesse shot Adam a quick look. "I'm okay with what happened, if that's what you mean. I mean, I couldn't sleep real well for a couple of nights, but Shalimar probably already told you that."
"No, actually, she kept that to herself, but I'm glad you're there for each other, Jess."
"Yeah well, me too." Stretching, Jesse grimaced as stiff muscles protested their recent disuse. "Ow."
When Adam didn't say anything, Jesse realized something was on the other man's mind. "Andwhat else has you in here instead of the lab?"
"Jesse, has Brennan been training with you?"
Swinging his chair around and his brow furrowing in concern, Jesse turned to his mentor. "No, now that you mention it, I don't think he's been working out lately with Shal or with Emma either."
"Damn. I was hopingI know this was hard on both of you, but none of us can afford to break training."
"And we all know that, Adam. He's recovering physically but I thinkafter what happened in that place, I'm not sure he trusts himself to work out with any of us."
"I thought he didn't remember anything." Adam asked.
"No," Jesse responded thoughtfully. "But the feelings if not specific images. I mean, he doesn't remember details. Just that he thought he had to kill me..."
"And that he almost did." Adam finished for him. "I can't send Brennan out on missions with you guys if he's afraid to use his powers or his physical talents. Maybe I should track him down today, talk to him."
Jesse pulled off his headset and put it down on the countertop. "Adam, I think maybe it should be me. I mean, whatever is going on in his head, it's all wound up with what happened between the two of us in that prison."
"Okay, but if this doesn't work"
"It'll work, Adam." The younger man interrupted softly. "I suppose two heads are better than one even for something like this. He's talked me through a few rough moments, and I can certainly return the favor." Jesse rose from his seat and went to get what he needed.
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Jesse entered the dojo and found a seat to one side. He watched as Shalimar aimed a kick at Emma's head and grinned when the younger woman not only ducked, but let loose with a kick of her own that narrowly missed the feral's left arm.
"Not bad, kiddo. You're getting better."
Panting as she drew back, Emma flashed a rather wicked smile of her own. "Well, I can't always rely on my wits, you know."
"Ouch" Jesse mimed a gunshot in Shalimar's direction from his perch on the bench.
"Shut up, Jesse!" The feral was fighting giggles and trying unsuccessfully to look stern. "I think that's enough for today anyway. You tired me out."
"Which for you is saying something." Emma responded. "Are you too tired to go out clubbing tonight?"
"I didn't say I was that tired." Grabbing a towel, Shalimar threw her other arm over Emma's shoulder. "It's all yours, Jess, if you want it."
"Thanks. Don't stay out too late, Shal." Jesse said, and ducked a half-hearted swat from his friend.
"Yes, mom." Shalimar replied, and sauntered off with Emma toward their rooms to change. Jesse was already in workout clothes so he started stretching to warm up. He was about five minutes into his first kata when he felt someone watching him from the shadows beneath the stairs. Without stopping, he began to move his workout to that side of the dojo floor.
It had been two weeks since their little foray into the world of the prison, and although he knew that most of his bruises were fading, he'd seen Brennan's eyes linger on them more than once. Most of Brennan's injuries had been to the torso, arms, and legs, as opposed to Jesse's face, which he felt had taken quite enough abuse over the week between finding Denny and their friends breaking them out of prison. It had taken Jesse at least a week to stop favoring his left side where a couple of ribs had been badly damaged. His split lip had been healed in the lab.
Brennan hadn't spoken to Jesse much after that apology, and he'd grown worried. They usually trained together a few times a week, and Jesse had noticed that his usually eager teammate had stayed away from the practice room far longer than his injuries would explain. Added to all that, he'd noticed that the other man had been wearing a long sleeved shirt most of the time instead of his usual muscle shirts, despite the relative warmth inside Sanctuary.
The older man's silent presence in the shadows behind the stairs didn't really bother him. He figured that Brennan would talk to him when he was ready. Jesse kicked and punched fluidly through the routine, picturing his opponent clearly in his mind. Somehow, he noticed, his mental image went from a generic GSA agent to that of the prison wardenit felt good to get out some aggressions that way.
Jesse moved through the last part of the ritual and sank to a kneeling position on the floor, his hands palm up and his eyes closed. "You gonna join me, Bren?" He spoke without opening his eyes and heard the quick, startled intake of his friend's breath, waited patiently until he also heard tentative footsteps. When he knew that Brennan had sat in front of him, and was audibly trying to control his own breathing, he opened his eyes.
"Hey." Brennan murmured, staring intently at the floor.
"Hey back." Jesse sat quietly. After few minutes of silence, he tried again. "What's wrong?"
"Don't believe in beating around the bush, do you?" Brennan said, his voice sounding hoarse.
"Not when I'm worried about a friend. You're not training, Brennan. You're not training with any of us, you're barely talking, you're covering up those bruises and you know they're mostly fading like mine are. I thought we covered this beforeI don't blame you, okay?"
The other man began fidgeting with his ring, running his finger across it over and over again.
"Bren, look at me, hmmm?"
Brennan raised his head a little, finally meeting his friend's gaze. "Jesse, I can't"
"Yes you can. C'mon, just one, okay?"
He pulled Brennan to his feet and stood a few feet away from him. "The new one we did a couple of weeks ago. You taught it to me, remember?" The two stretched and then slowly began the kata, slow motion punches and kicks that gradually sped up until their unison movements were almost a blur.
Rusty movements and sore muscles gave way to comfortable speed and agility as they fell into sync again. Things were fine until the movements called for a particular forward punch. Brennan seemed to freeze mid-gesture, stumbling and falling to one knee. "Brennan?" Jesse knelt down next to his partner, putting one hand on his shoulder. The other man had started to shake violently, pale and sweatier than the workout should have made him.
"Don't touch me!" Brennan snapped at him, wrenching away from his hand. "I canoh, God" He clutched at his head.
Worried and wondering if he should call for Adam, Jesse tried again. "Hey, easy, what's"
Brennan raised haunted eyes. "I can remember, Jess. I almost killed you. You didn't mass. Why didn't you mass? I would have killed you."
I had my hands around yyour nneck andI could feel" Abruptly, he lurched to his feet and stumbled out of the dojo.
Following quickly, Jesse took the path his teammate had taken, following the sound of running water until he'd gotten to the bathroom that they shared. He rapped on the door softly. "Bren?"
When there wasn't a response aside from the toilet flushing, he eased the door open. Brennan was leaning heavily on the sink with one arm and rinsing his mouth out with his free hand. He'd obviously just finished throwing up, and there was a minimum of color to his face.
"Hey, man." Jesse said gently, touching Brennan's face to check for fever and was relieved to find none. It sounded from his friend's few words as though whatever barriers the drugs had set up for memory had just come tumbling down with a vengeance. "You gonna to be sick again?"
"Nno," Brennan rasped, and swayed a bit.
"Come on, sit down before you fall down." A small tug was all he needed to get the elemental down to the floor. "Put your head down, that's it. Just keep it there for a little while."
Jesse sat down on the floor beside him and rubbed his friend's tense back. They sat there, silence broken only by Adam's appearance in the doorway. "You guys okay? What's going on, Brennan?"
When the other man didn't answer, Jesse did it for him. "Flashback, I think. His memories from when he was on that stuff are coming back, Adam."
After a few patient minutes, Adam tried again. "Brennan, talk to us, please? Tell us what's going on in that thick skull of yours."
Brennan huffed his breath out in a faintly amused sound. "Adam, do you trust me?"
Cocking his head to the side, somewhat confused, Adam looked at him. "Of course I do. Why would you question that?"
Getting to his rather unsteady feet, Brennan started pacing back and forth in the small room. "Why wouldn't you question it? AdamHenry, Lorna, Wallingtonthey all were in my headand I could see what I was doing, but I couldn't stopI was" He punctuated each of the last few words with a fist smashed into the hard tiles on the wall.
Jesse jumped up and halted his friend's self-destructive movements by grasping Brennan's fist in his own hand. "Woah. You've got enough bruises healing already, man. Stop it. Just talk to us, okay?"
Yanking his hand away, Brennan continued pacing. "This last year. Over and over. Henryhe used my fears against meI could see and hear everything and I knew it was real, and I couldn't stop it. But it hurt so much, and then he used my body to attack Emma and youLorna did the same thing. And Rigas' drug, Jess, it made me use your weaknesses against you and I could have killed you"
"Adam," Brennan continued hoarsely. "With all of them, I was still there, screaming for them to stop but no one could hear me. I wanted you to hear me. No one could. Even when Lornawhen weshe made me want her and insideI wanted to scream no, but she changed how I felt"
"And in the ring, I wanted to fightto kill JesseI felt that" Brennan's voice wavered on the other man's name.
"That wasn't you and you know it." Jesse said fiercely, hating to hear his friend talk like this. "That was the drug."
"How in the hell can you trust me, either of you?!" His voice rising into a shout that rang in Jesse's ears in the small space they stood in, Brennan wrapped his arms around himself tightly.
Jesse moved to intercept Brennan on his next pass in front of them, putting one hand out but not quite touching him. "Bren, it wasn't you." He heard his own voice getting louder in response to his friend's panic, but didn't know how else to get through to him. "Damn it, you know that. Rigas' drug was making you do thingsI know that you wouldn't knowingly try to kill me."
"But I almost did. And I said things to you." Brennan murmured, and backed away from Jesse, pressed his palms against his forehead as though trying to hold back the unwelcome memories. "I can remember that I said things to hurt you, Jess, and they weren't true, okay? God, man, I know you're there to watch my back, and I don't want you gone, tooI keep losing people and it's like there's nowhere to hide." His voice came out muffled behind his hands.
"Bren, do you feel safe right now?" Adam asked. Jesse stared at him, startled, and Brennan dropped his hands, staring at him too.
"No, nnot even in Sanctuary." Brennan whispered and his eyes filled in a sudden rush of tears. "No" he repeated as those tears finally spilled over and his knees buckled.
"Woah, easy." Reaching out, Jesse moved together with Adam and helped ease their friend to the ground, and Adam pulled Brennan into a tight embrace. The other man bent without resistance, burrowing his face into his mentor's shoulder as he shook. As Adam rocked them both slowly and stroked Brennan's short hair, Jesse hovered, uncertain of how to help, until one of his friend's hands shot out to grab his and hang on as if for his life. He knelt to join the other two and just held on, thinking that he wasn't sure who needed the reassurance. No one commented on the tears on his own face, and for that he was grateful to Adam.
After a long time, in which the silence was broken only by Brennan's ragged breathing, the younger man pulled away a little. "Adam," he managed to get out hoarsely, "Iis there something that made them do what they did? What's friggin' wrong with me that these maniacs picked me?"
Adam grasped the back of Brennan's neck and shook it gently. "You didn't do anything to deserve this, you hear me? Nothing."
Jesse broke in, tightening his grip on Brennan's hand. "Bren, remember what I said before we found Denny? If I made it sound like I doubted you, I'm sorry. I know that you would never hurt anyone on purpose, without a damn good reason. We've all had our secrets and things we've done that we're not proud of. All of us. Nothing you did in your past made you deserve this and nothing you did is going to make me stop trusting you, and neither is this. Got it? I know you've had a lot of crap thrown your way lately, and so have we all"
Brennan rolled his eyes at that statement and tried scrubbing the tears away with his free hand.
"But we're a team, man. Right?"
At Brennan's rather shaky nod, Adam sighed and let the younger man pull back and pull himself together. Jesse released Brennan's hand with one last squeeze and turned away for a second to wipe at his own face with his sleeve. "Feeling overwhelmed after something like this is normal," Adam added, "but next time tell me before you end up sick or worse, okay? It's been a long time coming. Too long. If either of you need to talk this out any further, tell me. Just give me fair warning so I can find a more comfortable place to sit than the bathroom floor, hmmm? Some of us aren't young anymore, you know."
Brennan's chuckle was a welcome sound to Adam. "Sorry."
Adam sighed with relief. "Don't apologizeyou needed it. Jesse, I'm getting the feeling that our friend here hasn't slept a lot. Make sure he rests, okay?"
"Adam"
"Give it time, Brennan. Healing takes time. And I do trust you." Adam reached up a little to frame the side of Brennan's face with one gentle hand. "Both of you." He added, grasping Jesse's shoulder firmly. Surprised at the relief he felt hearing that, Jesse nodded.
"Thanks." Brennan managed to whisper and let the two men pull him to his feet. They got to Brennan's room and then Adam wisely left them alone. Jesse got the other man onto the bed. With no macho objections or fussing, even when the younger man pulled the covers up over him. And that told him how truly exhausted the elemental was at that point. Jesse looked down at his friend, feeling incredibly grateful that they were both there to feel that exhausted.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, Jesse's blue eyes met Brennan's brown ones. "Bren, just so you know, I didn't mass during that fight or in solitary because I knew it would kill you. One blow from my fist at that density could have killed you, and I wouldn't do that, okay? I was trying to get you out of there in one piece. I felt like it was my fault you were in there in the first place."
"Jesse" Brennan started.
"Hey, this is my apology, okay?" Jesse poked at his friend's face and let Brennan bat his finger away in mock annoyance. "You once told us that your worst nightmare is having your powers used against you."
At Brennan's nod, Jesse went on. "Well, one of my worst nightmares is seeing my powers kill one of you. To have one of the people I love get in the way when I'm massed, or if I were to phase at the wrong time and a bullet got to you."
His eyes going wide with understanding, Brennan clasped Jesse's hand again in their usual gesture. "You didn't, man. You didn't, and thank you."
"Eh, no big deal. Part of the job. We've both lost people we cared about recently, and that's enough to make anyone paranoid. No one's gonna lose anyone right now."
"We can't guarantee that, Jess."
"I know. I knowbut I know we'll all do our best to keep it from happening."
Brennan's fingers tangled in the blankets. "Jessewhy didn't you tell me? I mean, what I said andI guess I'd be really angry if someone"
Letting out a quick breath, Jesse shook his head. "Yeah, I was pissed off. What you said hurt me a lot, and I to be honest, I wanted to hurt you back. But I needed you to be okay more than I needed revenge, especially since you didn't have any control over what you said or did."
"Jesse"
"Hey, what did I say? And you needed to let it out. You've listened to me enough times when I'm venting. Sides, Shal already sat up for a few nights when I couldn't sleep and helped me deal." Quickly, he shoved aside the all-too-recent memories of waking from screaming nightmares to find Shalimar holding him. They'd slept curled up together more than once for the same reason when they'd first come to Sanctuary, after all.
He patted Brennan's leg, got up, but paused by the door. "Can you get some sleep? It'll help. We can finish that workout in the morning, if the world doesn't need saving."
Sleepy grin met answering smile and then Brennan obviously couldn't keep his eyes from closing. Jesse closed the door as quietly as possible and was startled to find Emma standing just down the hall, leaning on a support post.
"Ah, jeez, don't scare me like that!" He shook his head, exasperated, heart racing.
"You guys okay?" she inquired.
"We'll be all right." Jesse answered. "I thought you and Shal went out."
"We started to," she admitted. "But I got a hit off you and then Brennan, andyour emotions were pretty strong, so I convinced Shal to go without me. She'll probably wake me up when she gets in at 4 a.m. to tell me about it all anyway."
"Probably. She's done that to me a few times. There are some disadvantages to having an frequently nocturnal feral as a friend." She slung one arm around Jesse's waist. "Come on, I could use some tea. Are you all right?" Emma cocked her head to one side and reached out to touch Jesse's face, where there were still some traces of tears.
Jesse did an internal check, finding that he was feeling freer inside than he had in weeks. He caught her hand and kissed it, enjoying the look of surprise on her face. "Thanks, yeah. I will be. We both will be."