A/N 1: As in the previous chapters – ideas for fic and character development, questions, plotbunnies, suggestions, flames, character pictures, corrections, additions, comments, and everything in between can be mailed to hack_heaven@usa.net
A/N 2: Ageless: Babe, if I used some of your more interesting monologues, there's a good chance that we'd have to kick the rating to NC-17 *smirks and ducks to avoid the heavy objects being hurled at her*
Archangel: *evil grin* As very tempting as the idea is, I promised Fortune (yes, *her* - my current pain in the ass muse) to be a little nicer to the heroes. Duke it out with her if you want to - I'm not going anywhere near that railgun ;)
VivaGlam: Looking forward to the piccie, then ^^
Rascal: *smug grin*
A/N 3: All those various character ficlets and the like have been collected on one page: sorciere.freeservers.com / journey / index.html (that's also where the future chapters will be posted if ff.net crashes again). If anyone have anything to add to the page, mail it to me, and I'll put it up.
Italics indicates thoughts/telepathy
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Chapter Forty-Seven: Birth of a Leader
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Dawn came too soon for the unmoving shadow that sat by the window, legs curled up under her, and eyes weary from long, sleepless hours. Night had come and night had passed, all too fast for her taste. She'd slept a bit, but woken up in the dark, restless and uneasy. She needed to think, needed to consider her options, but there hadn't been nearly enough time to do so.
The first rays of sun hit her pale face, and she instinctively moved slightly to avoid the sudden brightness. She didn't want day to come yet - she needed more time. She wasn't ready...and she wasn't sure she'd ever be.
Hal sighed, and quietly slipped down from the windowsill.
It wasn't that she couldn't lead the team - she was pretty sure she could get them to Denver without too many problems - it was more the fact that she had four people suddenly counting on her. She wasn't used to being responsible for others in that way, and she didn't like it one bit. When she'd been on her own, she'd counted on no one but herself and her wit to survive. Even after she'd teamed up with Zach, they had still taken care of themselves first, and then the other.
Why me?
Hal had asked herself that question countless times during the night, but had found no clear answer. It didn't make sense; nothing did. Not the sudden assignment, not Blade's decision of making her temporary leader, not Zach's slight edginess around Jordane.
She'd tried to catch of a glimpse of the future during the night, but it hadn't worked. The possible time-lines had multiplied too fast for her to keep track of all of them, and she'd been forced to give up, leaving her with countless unanswered questions and a bad headache.
They hadn't even gotten any explanations, and that was perhaps the worst of it all. They *knew* something was going on. It took a lot to make Blade react like he had yesterday, and whatever it was, it hadn't been good news.
They were a team - they deserved to know what was going on, didn't they?
"Close the damn curtains," Pheonix complained sleepily and pulled the covers closer to block the sun from her vision.
"Sorry," Hal mumbled and did as she was told.
Pheonix spent a minute moving around restlessly in her bed, then sighed and sat up with a groggy look on her face.
"Nevermind...can't sleep again, anyway." She yawned, and took a moment to survey the room, then noticed the untouched bed next to her own. "Where's Lae?"
"She hasn't come back yet," Hal replied, pushing her gloomy thoughts aside. "I think she slept somewhere else."
Pheonix blinked, taking a moment to catch up with Hal's words.
"Wait...you mean you haven't slept all night? You're crazy," she mumbled and pulled the covers closer, reluctant to get out of bed. She was a night-person by heart, always would be, but she also preferred to sleep in whenever she'd been up late. She wasn't the kind of person who could sleep a few hours a night and still be well-rested.
Staying up late was a habit she'd gotten while she still lived with Shilo - she had rarely taken school seriously, and there were so many interesting things to do at night. Yeah, the streets had been dangerous by night, but as long as you went out in groups, and kept to the places where people hung out - the basketball courts, the skating ramps, the places where people breakdanced with music blaring from their ghettoblasters - you were fairly safe. Pheonix loved the night, and sleeping until noon the next day only made it better.
"I slept a couple of hours," Hal defended herself. "I just...I needed to think."
Pheonix looked at her, slowly starting to wake up.
"About leading the team? You can handle that - we trust you," she said and shrugged, then picked some random clothes from her bag. "'Sides, it's only a week."
"Yeah," Hal sighed, feeling marginally better. Pheonix was right - it was only a week. She could handle that. And it wasn't like there would be any important decisions to make...they just had to get to Denver and find the motel, that was all. Yeah...she could handle that.
Hal watched silently as Pheonix got dressed, then shook her head to clear her mind. She was supposed to lead - she might as well start now.
"Let's go have a talk with the guys, and figure out what we should do," she decided.
Pheonix just nodded and put on her blue sunglasses, more of habit than anything else, then headed out the door. Hal hesitated for a moment, then followed her.
Yeah...she could do this.
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As it turned out, the boys were only a bit more awake than Hal and Pheonix were. Aaron, already fully dressed, rested on his bed, enjoying the sunlight with a distinctive snake-like drowsiness, and pointedly ignored Zach's muttered curses as the older boy tried to find all his things in the mess around his bed.
"You better be dressed!" Pheonix yelled from the hallway, and opened the door without bothering to wait for a reply. Aaron turned his head slightly to look at her.
"And if we hadn't been?" he asked with a smirk.
Pheonix sent him a disgusted look, but didn't reply, and Aaron smiled lazily. Hal took a brief look around, frowning as she realized that one of the room's occupants was missing. Before she could ask, though, Jhonen appeared from the bathroom, clad only in one of the white towels. Hal raised an eyebrow in wry amusement, and Jhonen blushed, quickly pulling the towel tighter around his body.
"Don't worry, Jhonen. You don't have anything I haven't seen before," Hal smirked, amused by the boy's expression.
Jhonen hurried to his bed, and snatched some clothes before hurrying into the bathroom again. When he reappeared a few minutes later, he was fully dressed, and almost managed not to blush as Hal sent him another wry smile. Zach pointedly ignored the lot of them and tossed the last of his things on the bed before finally turning his attention to the others.
"So? Any particular reason why you suddenly show up in our room, or did you just miss our company?" he smirked.
"Dream on, Zachary," Hal replied, then turned a bit more serious. "Actually, we're here because we need to find out what we're going to do."
Aaron frowned and finally got out of his ray of sunshine to pay attention to the conversation.
"I think it would be easier to decide if we knew what was going on," he said. "The only thing Laetitia told us was that they had something to do, and that you would get temporary leadership of the team."
Hal sighed.
"Blade didn't tell me much more than Nike told you - he said it was a favor they owed to a friend, but it didn't sound particularly friendly to me. He also said that if they weren't at the motel in Denver within a week, we should get out of there, and not try to go back after them."
"So it's pretty bad news," Zach summarized. Hal just nodded, then suddenly remembered something.
"Jhonen?" she asked, and the boy looked up. "Laetitia talked to you yesterday, didn't she? Did she tell you anything about what was going on? Anything at all?"
"No," Jhonen replied and shook his head. "Not about this."
Hal nodded absently, then returned to her discussion with Aaron and Zach, and Jhonen leaned against the wall, suddenly feeling very tired.
He'd tried to talk to Laetitia yesterday, but she'd been too busy to pay him much attention. That only served to make Jhonen even more confused about what was going on - he'd wanted to talk to her about that night in the ally, wanted her to make all his doubt and confusion go away. They hadn't talked much about it, except for that night in the motel room, after...
Jhonen forced his mind away from that particular memory. Great as it had been, now was not the time to think about it. Things were confusing enough already; he didn't need to add anything to the list right now. He was confused about Laetitia, about their relationship, but mainly he was confused about himself.
He'd seen Laetitia kill Prue in cold blood. Seen her kill Prue and enjoy it...and he had done nothing to stop her. And not only that - he'd stopped Deirdre from helping Prue, and the most chilling part was...
He didn't regret it.
He knew he should - what Laetitia had done was wrong, there was no way of denying that, and still...he didn't regret it. Part of him couldn't help but think that they deserved it, that Ryan deserved it. He could have killed Laetitia with that mind-bolt. A little bit more strength behind, and...
Jhonen didn't want to think about that.
He sighed, frustration starting to show, and tried to force himself to think of something else. Right now everything was too confusing.
"Jhonen? Are you okay?"
He forced himself back to reality and found Pheonix watching him with a worried expression. Hal, Zach, and Aaron were still discussing their future course of action, oblivious to Jhonen's moment of inattentiveness.
Jhonen nodded slowly.
"Yeah, I was just...thinking."
"Know what you mean," Pheonix mumbled, low enough so that only Jhonen would hear it. "I don't like this, either."
Jhonen sent her a confused look, and Pheonix clarified.
"I mean Nike. She's been acting strange since they got that phone-call. She spent most of yesterday planning and she hasn't even slept in her bed tonight."
"Maybe they were busy," Jhonen suggested quietly, listening to the others' conversation with half an ear. "Whatever they're planning sounds like a bad job."
Pheonix shook her head.
"No, I know Nike. It's bad news when she starts to act like this. I tried to talk to her, but she just brushed me off."
"Yeah...me, too," Jhonen admitted. "She said she had to concentrate on the job."
Pheonix snorted.
"Job...she's always working. It's fucking annoying sometimes," she muttered under her breath.
"Pheonix? Jhonen?"
The two mutants looked up at the sound of Hal's voice.
"What?" Pheonix snapped. Hal just sent her an amused smile.
"I said, we're going to travel by the smaller roads and try to avoid the large cities. Five teenagers travelling together could easily make someone suspicious. Let's try to avoid people if we can," Hal repeated. "Do any of you have anything to add?"
Jhonen and Pheonix exchanged a look, then Jhonen shrugged.
"Sounds like a plan to me."
"Excellent," Hal said and smiled. "Zach, you drive the car, I'll take the 'rover. Let's get to work, people - I want us on the road in three hours."
Her teammates nodded, and returned to their packing. Hal watched them for a moment, then headed out of the door, actually feeling pretty good about herself.
Yeah...she could definitely handle this.
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