PART 7
Sunset. He couldn't actually see it from where he was, but the fading light was a dead giveaway, he thought vaguely. Except that suddenly it was getting brighter again, and it took a great effort for him to raise his chin from where it rested against his chest, dragged there by gravity when he'd given up the unequal struggle to keep his head upright in the face of exhaustion and pain.
The movement was enough to reawaken the cruel ache in his shoulders, the burning complaint of muscles and tendons stretched too far by the weight of his body pulling down against them countered by the sharp sting of the cuffs slicing into his wrists as they held his arms tautly above him. If he tilted his head back a bit further he thought he'd probably be able to see the hook he was virtually hanging from, but that would require far too much energy. And in any case, now he'd got himself this far, managed to get his eyes open as well, he could see why it seemed to be getting lighter again, and that pushed all other considerations from his mind.
Through the now open door of the box he seemed to be imprisoned in he could see what looked like a procession wending its way through the gathering gloom towards him, many flaming torches giving an eerie cast to the intent faces of the men carrying them. His wavering gaze travelled ahead of them, trying to give him some clue as to what their purpose could be, but even before he saw what awaited them on the scrubby grass to one side of his field of vision he knew it wasn't going to be good. And the way his heart started to hammer against the inside of his chest at the sight just confirmed it.
A stake had been driven into the ground about 30 yards away from him, with bundles of roughly hacked tree branches piled around it. And chained to that stake was a horrifyingly familiar figure.
He realized now that he could hear – that what had seemed to be just buzzing in his ears was actually someone calling to him, shouting his name, screaming for him to help them, and it didn't take him long to realize that he knew the voice. Knew it better than he did his own. And his pounding heart leapt into his throat and threatened to choke him, preventing him from responding even though he wanted to tell her he was coming for her, that he wouldn't let anything bad happen.
He struggled with his bonds, as he could see she was doing, jerking his body futilely against the supports behind him, yanking at the chains holding his arms captive, not caring what further damage he did to himself. Somewhere in his head something murmured that there should be an easier way but, though he tried, he couldn't unlock the secret. And in any case there was no time because the procession had reached its destination.
A single voice roared out an order and the torchbearers peeled away from the mass to position themselves, ready and waiting. Another voice, intoning words of guilt and retribution, words he knew to be untrue but couldn't find a way of refuting, preceded one final instruction.
As the torches plunged into piles of wood, igniting them with a heat-filled roar that sent the men reeling back from the instantaneous blaze, his eyes sought hers, trying to tell her he was sorry for failing her, that if he could switch places with her he would, that he loved her in a way he would never love anyone else... but all he could see in their strangely shiny brown depths was sadness and - to his eternal despair – accusation.
He saw her shrink back from the rising flames even though she had nowhere to go, watched her struggles to free herself lessen as her instinctive fears took over and held her mesmerised, whimpering in shock. Smelt the terrible odour of burning flesh waft across towards him on the evening breeze, heard her howls of terror and agony and hopelessness build to a crescendo that echoed around his head, mingling with his own screams of rage and denial as he visualised the fire licking at her clothes, caressing her skin, blackening the bright blonde of her hair...
And then, with a final soul-chilling screech that ripped his heart right out of his body, she was gone...
...and he was catapulted into nothingness, a void with no beginning and no end that blotted out any sense of time, of emotion, of *being*, where he seemed destined to languish forever until...
Sunset. He couldn't actually see it from where he was, but...
*
"Should he be doing that?"
"What?" Adam looked up from his monitor, taking a moment to re-orientate himself into his current surroundings. He'd been immersed in the responses he'd received to a general broadcast to those New Mutants who'd travelled the Mutant X underground and were still in contact, enjoying the sense of satisfaction he always got from knowing he helped them to a better life. But mixed in with that was a certain disquiet at the few who'd also replied positively to his question about unusual dreams.
He turned to see Connie hovering in the doorway, glancing a little anxiously over her shoulder in the direction of med-bay.
"Should he be *twitching* like that," she asked again, rolling her eyes at his lack of attention. But she couldn't be disappointed with his reaction this time – he almost knocked her over as he rushed past her and into the room next door.
At first sight there didn't seem to be anything different about Jesse, nothing changed from the way he'd been since they'd carried him in here. He was still much too pale, still apparently unmoving, eyes still closed. But a quick glance at the monitors he was linked to told Adam that both his heart rate and respiration were elevated from the barely there levels of the past 40 hours, and his brain activity was spiking oddly.
When he leant closer, though, he could see what had alarmed Connie. Just perceptible tremors shook the younger man's body at irregular intervals, there was rapid movement under the almost translucent eyelids, and he could hear a slight rasping under the faint sounds of his breathing. All signs of returning consciousness, though he couldn't help fearing it wouldn't be the peaceful return he would have hoped for.
He let out a sigh, straightening to smile as reassuringly as he could in the circumstances. "I think he's dreaming again."
Connie frowned uncertainly at him. "But... I thought the dreams weren't good. That there was something funny about them?"
He shook his head. "I still don't know – I don't have enough evidence yet to say one way or the other."
"But this worries you, doesn't it," she said, with a nod in Jesse's direction. Not a question, a statement, and he had to remind himself again that the girl was sharper than her youth and appearance might indicate.
But watching the clearly increasing physical indications of renewed mental activity, he had to admit to himself she was right.
Though he hadn't had time to fully assimilate the information from the replies he'd received to his query it was looking as if Jesse and Gayle were not alone in their recent precognitive dreaming. At least three others had reported nightmares in which they or their families had been at risk somehow, and in two of those cases the events of the nightmare had come to pass. Additionally, another of the e-mails had brought the sad news of the death of another mutant in an accident, though there was nothing to say whether there had been any kind of forewarning. And although, as he'd said, this wasn't evidence in itself that there was some outside influence at work, it was becoming more likely. And that certainly did worry him, particularly as it looked as if Jesse, having somehow survived one such episode, was now experiencing another.
He wished Emma was there, wished he'd asked her to stay instead of going with the others to start some on-the-ground research into their new prime suspect. But they'd all been so determined to get out of Sanctuary the moment they'd found a place to begin, to be doing something more positive than staring at computer screens. Even Shalimar, who'd been almost climbing the walls in her need for some release for her anxieties over Jesse, had given herself permission to leave him - though she'd taken Adam aside and made him promise that someone would be with him in case he woke.
And though he'd hinted to Emma that he could do with some help, she'd been uncharacteristically firm in her belief that she would be more use going with the others. Or maybe not so uncharacteristically – when he thought about it, he realised that her confidence in herself and her decisions had been growing in line with her increasing powers, though he hadn't really noticed it at the time.
Connie had wanted to go too, but Brennan had reacted almost apoplectically to the suggestion, which would have been comical in other circumstances. He'd emerged from his session with her the previous day just a little frazzled, swearing that if he'd had to spend any longer with her he'd probably have throttled her, and he didn't appear to be dealing too well with the way she'd seemed to be following him around making eyes at him since. Adam wasn't sure if she'd really developed some sort of teenage crush on the big elemental, or whether she'd discovered what buttons to press to get him jumping and was just enjoying winding him up. But whatever it was, it was working.
Much to Brennan's relief, though, Adam had insisted it was too much of a risk for her to go along, and that in any case he'd need her assistance continuing the work they'd already done getting this far with the shadowy Mr. DeSalles.
As it had turned out, DeSalles wasn't such an uncommon name – at least, not in certain parts of the country. But very few of those DeSalles' were wealthy enough to be behind the kind of well-funded operation this appeared to be. Two, in fact, neither of whom on the surface seemed to be anything more sinister than big fish in small ponds intent on having it all to themselves.
But when Shalimar had succeeded in hacking into a few of the more secure and private medical and federal databases, it soon became blindingly obvious why one of them would have reason to hate mutants.
Warren DeSalles, a 48-year-old property dealer and financier, had lost his young wife and 7-year-old son in what seemed to be a freak accident. The news reports of the event told a tragic tale, describing how the pair had been in the wrong place at the wrong time, caught in a gas explosion that had destroyed a liquor store just as they'd been driving by, the blast turning their car into an inferno on wheels.
But, according to the police files that, it seemed, had been sealed at DeSalles' request, there'd been no gas leak. CCTV footage salvaged from the back room of the store, away from the site of the blast, had shown a couple of what had to be out-of-control New Mutants, out to use their powers for their own benefit and amusement, there with the intention of robbing the store. One of them, however, a thermal elemental, was obviously sick – so sick that he'd literally exploded into a ball of flames. He'd been moving towards the door as it happened, and it was that which had sent the main force of the blast outwards towards the passing car.
Adam had realised then what had made the man's name familiar to him – he'd read something about the incident at the time, coinciding as it did with the outbreak the previous year of Cladosporium, the virus stemming from an airborne spore that had caused so many New Mutants to lose control of their powers, and then their lives – a number that had almost included Jesse and Emma. He'd wondered vaguely then if there was more to the story, given the similarities with what had happened to Alice Robins when they'd been trying to help her, but with everything else that was going on he'd had no time to follow up. As the virus hadn't become common knowledge, though, it wasn't something that would have played any part in DeSalles' reasoning once he'd seen the tape. He would only know that his family had been killed by a self-destructing freak.
Medical records showed that he'd been admitted to an exclusive clinic for treatment for depression and substance abuse, staying there for several months. When he'd emerged again, he'd resumed his business affairs with an added aggression and coldness that had moved him to a new level in the local pecking order, both financially and, if reports were to be believed, in terms of peer respect for his new methods among less law-abiding elements. Socially, however, he'd become a recluse, splitting his time between his penthouse office and his bewalled mansion, surrounding himself with bodyguards to keep everyone else away from him.
However, there'd been no indication of any link with a private army forcibly abducting mutants, and Adam had been in agreement with his team when they'd jointly decided that they were going to have to get closer to the man if they were going to find out the truth. But now he wondered if he shouldn't have insisted on them taking more time – at least long enough for Jesse to come round.
He looked at Connie again, seeing her still watching him cautiously. "Stay with him a minute, just in case, OK?" he asked, waiting until she nodded her assent before moving away and activating the comms system to contact the others. After the briefest of preliminary niceties, which merely ascertained that they hadn't really had time yet to discover anything of note, Shalimar asked after Jesse, obviously worried that Adam's call might be bringing bad news.
"He's coming out of it, I think. That's why I was calling. Emma, I think he's dreaming again. Do you sense anything?"
There was a moment's silence before she responded, and he could imagine her staring unseeing into the middle distance as she did a mental check of that place where she kept whatever it was that allowed her to get some kind of emotional awareness of her friends if she needed to. But her tone was thoughtful when she finally said, "I think I'm too far away to get any detail. But there's... fear... anger... and..." She broke off with a gasp, and he could hear Shalimar's voice in the background raised in surprise and query. But it was mere seconds before Emma was back, her, "Adam, you have to wake him! Now!!" mingling with Connie speaking again from behind him, saying firmly, "Adam, he's kind of freaking - I *really* don't think he should be doing that!" and Adam whirled round to see Jesse convulsing against the bed, face contorting and soundless screams emanating from lips drawn back in a snarl of desperation and terror.
*
He was back in the never-ending nightmare again, struggling helplessly as the flames devoured her, screaming her name as she screamed out her final agony, sweat streaming down his face from the heat, from his efforts to free himself, soaking into the tattered fabric of his shirt. He screwed his eyes shut against the horrific scene, not wanting to see the grisly spectre she'd become, holding his breath to blot out the stench, wishing it could transport him away and cursing the noose-like band clamped around his throat that prevented it doing just that.
Something somewhere beyond the immediacy of his torment tried to reach him, tried to find a voice amidst the screams filling his head. A voice that called his name, that seemed to promise sanctuary from the guilt and pain and endless condemnation, and though he wanted to stay there, to share whatever eternity had in store for her, he found himself being swept away without the strength to fight any more. With a final whispered farewell that echoed through him as loud as anything that had gone before, he was forced to leave her and follow the sound through the darkness.
"Jesse? Come on, Jess, don't do this. Time to wake up now, OK? Please try, Jesse, please..."
And he emerged, panting with effort, into the light.
Adam saw the pale blue eyes flare open, wide with shock, to flicker almost unseeingly about him, heard the panicked gasps for air that wracked his body, felt the clammy sheen of sweat beading the skin beneath his fingers as he shook him in a desperate attempt to wake him from the dreamworld that had held him captive too long.
With relief he smiled, pleased to see some purpose start to return to the blue gaze. "Hey," he said gently. "Welcome back."
But it was as if Jesse hadn't heard him. Instead, eyes still moving jerkily round the room as if searching for something, he tried to push himself up on his elbows, fighting feebly against the restraining hand Adam placed on his shoulder. "Shalimar?" he called, his dry throat forcing the word out in a husky croak that still did nothing to hide the wealth of emotion behind it. "Shalimar!!"
"She's not here, Jesse. She's with the others, following a lead." Adam felt a surge of alarm at the intensity of his reaction.
"Noooo," Jesse wailed, head rolling fretfully against the cushioned pad. "No, couldn't save her, couldn't... Shalimar!!"
"It's OK, Jess, she's alright!" Trying to soothe and calm the obviously distraught molecular, Adam became aware of someone speaking to him, felt a hand tug at his arm, and shifted his attention enough to hear the disembodied words coming through the comms system. Shalimar's voice, almost incoherent, mixed with Emma's reassuring tones, and finally Brennan's deeper, "Adam? We're coming home."
****
Sunset. He couldn't actually see it from where he was, but the fading light was a dead giveaway, he thought vaguely. Except that suddenly it was getting brighter again, and it took a great effort for him to raise his chin from where it rested against his chest, dragged there by gravity when he'd given up the unequal struggle to keep his head upright in the face of exhaustion and pain.
The movement was enough to reawaken the cruel ache in his shoulders, the burning complaint of muscles and tendons stretched too far by the weight of his body pulling down against them countered by the sharp sting of the cuffs slicing into his wrists as they held his arms tautly above him. If he tilted his head back a bit further he thought he'd probably be able to see the hook he was virtually hanging from, but that would require far too much energy. And in any case, now he'd got himself this far, managed to get his eyes open as well, he could see why it seemed to be getting lighter again, and that pushed all other considerations from his mind.
Through the now open door of the box he seemed to be imprisoned in he could see what looked like a procession wending its way through the gathering gloom towards him, many flaming torches giving an eerie cast to the intent faces of the men carrying them. His wavering gaze travelled ahead of them, trying to give him some clue as to what their purpose could be, but even before he saw what awaited them on the scrubby grass to one side of his field of vision he knew it wasn't going to be good. And the way his heart started to hammer against the inside of his chest at the sight just confirmed it.
A stake had been driven into the ground about 30 yards away from him, with bundles of roughly hacked tree branches piled around it. And chained to that stake was a horrifyingly familiar figure.
He realized now that he could hear – that what had seemed to be just buzzing in his ears was actually someone calling to him, shouting his name, screaming for him to help them, and it didn't take him long to realize that he knew the voice. Knew it better than he did his own. And his pounding heart leapt into his throat and threatened to choke him, preventing him from responding even though he wanted to tell her he was coming for her, that he wouldn't let anything bad happen.
He struggled with his bonds, as he could see she was doing, jerking his body futilely against the supports behind him, yanking at the chains holding his arms captive, not caring what further damage he did to himself. Somewhere in his head something murmured that there should be an easier way but, though he tried, he couldn't unlock the secret. And in any case there was no time because the procession had reached its destination.
A single voice roared out an order and the torchbearers peeled away from the mass to position themselves, ready and waiting. Another voice, intoning words of guilt and retribution, words he knew to be untrue but couldn't find a way of refuting, preceded one final instruction.
As the torches plunged into piles of wood, igniting them with a heat-filled roar that sent the men reeling back from the instantaneous blaze, his eyes sought hers, trying to tell her he was sorry for failing her, that if he could switch places with her he would, that he loved her in a way he would never love anyone else... but all he could see in their strangely shiny brown depths was sadness and - to his eternal despair – accusation.
He saw her shrink back from the rising flames even though she had nowhere to go, watched her struggles to free herself lessen as her instinctive fears took over and held her mesmerised, whimpering in shock. Smelt the terrible odour of burning flesh waft across towards him on the evening breeze, heard her howls of terror and agony and hopelessness build to a crescendo that echoed around his head, mingling with his own screams of rage and denial as he visualised the fire licking at her clothes, caressing her skin, blackening the bright blonde of her hair...
And then, with a final soul-chilling screech that ripped his heart right out of his body, she was gone...
...and he was catapulted into nothingness, a void with no beginning and no end that blotted out any sense of time, of emotion, of *being*, where he seemed destined to languish forever until...
Sunset. He couldn't actually see it from where he was, but...
*
"Should he be doing that?"
"What?" Adam looked up from his monitor, taking a moment to re-orientate himself into his current surroundings. He'd been immersed in the responses he'd received to a general broadcast to those New Mutants who'd travelled the Mutant X underground and were still in contact, enjoying the sense of satisfaction he always got from knowing he helped them to a better life. But mixed in with that was a certain disquiet at the few who'd also replied positively to his question about unusual dreams.
He turned to see Connie hovering in the doorway, glancing a little anxiously over her shoulder in the direction of med-bay.
"Should he be *twitching* like that," she asked again, rolling her eyes at his lack of attention. But she couldn't be disappointed with his reaction this time – he almost knocked her over as he rushed past her and into the room next door.
At first sight there didn't seem to be anything different about Jesse, nothing changed from the way he'd been since they'd carried him in here. He was still much too pale, still apparently unmoving, eyes still closed. But a quick glance at the monitors he was linked to told Adam that both his heart rate and respiration were elevated from the barely there levels of the past 40 hours, and his brain activity was spiking oddly.
When he leant closer, though, he could see what had alarmed Connie. Just perceptible tremors shook the younger man's body at irregular intervals, there was rapid movement under the almost translucent eyelids, and he could hear a slight rasping under the faint sounds of his breathing. All signs of returning consciousness, though he couldn't help fearing it wouldn't be the peaceful return he would have hoped for.
He let out a sigh, straightening to smile as reassuringly as he could in the circumstances. "I think he's dreaming again."
Connie frowned uncertainly at him. "But... I thought the dreams weren't good. That there was something funny about them?"
He shook his head. "I still don't know – I don't have enough evidence yet to say one way or the other."
"But this worries you, doesn't it," she said, with a nod in Jesse's direction. Not a question, a statement, and he had to remind himself again that the girl was sharper than her youth and appearance might indicate.
But watching the clearly increasing physical indications of renewed mental activity, he had to admit to himself she was right.
Though he hadn't had time to fully assimilate the information from the replies he'd received to his query it was looking as if Jesse and Gayle were not alone in their recent precognitive dreaming. At least three others had reported nightmares in which they or their families had been at risk somehow, and in two of those cases the events of the nightmare had come to pass. Additionally, another of the e-mails had brought the sad news of the death of another mutant in an accident, though there was nothing to say whether there had been any kind of forewarning. And although, as he'd said, this wasn't evidence in itself that there was some outside influence at work, it was becoming more likely. And that certainly did worry him, particularly as it looked as if Jesse, having somehow survived one such episode, was now experiencing another.
He wished Emma was there, wished he'd asked her to stay instead of going with the others to start some on-the-ground research into their new prime suspect. But they'd all been so determined to get out of Sanctuary the moment they'd found a place to begin, to be doing something more positive than staring at computer screens. Even Shalimar, who'd been almost climbing the walls in her need for some release for her anxieties over Jesse, had given herself permission to leave him - though she'd taken Adam aside and made him promise that someone would be with him in case he woke.
And though he'd hinted to Emma that he could do with some help, she'd been uncharacteristically firm in her belief that she would be more use going with the others. Or maybe not so uncharacteristically – when he thought about it, he realised that her confidence in herself and her decisions had been growing in line with her increasing powers, though he hadn't really noticed it at the time.
Connie had wanted to go too, but Brennan had reacted almost apoplectically to the suggestion, which would have been comical in other circumstances. He'd emerged from his session with her the previous day just a little frazzled, swearing that if he'd had to spend any longer with her he'd probably have throttled her, and he didn't appear to be dealing too well with the way she'd seemed to be following him around making eyes at him since. Adam wasn't sure if she'd really developed some sort of teenage crush on the big elemental, or whether she'd discovered what buttons to press to get him jumping and was just enjoying winding him up. But whatever it was, it was working.
Much to Brennan's relief, though, Adam had insisted it was too much of a risk for her to go along, and that in any case he'd need her assistance continuing the work they'd already done getting this far with the shadowy Mr. DeSalles.
As it had turned out, DeSalles wasn't such an uncommon name – at least, not in certain parts of the country. But very few of those DeSalles' were wealthy enough to be behind the kind of well-funded operation this appeared to be. Two, in fact, neither of whom on the surface seemed to be anything more sinister than big fish in small ponds intent on having it all to themselves.
But when Shalimar had succeeded in hacking into a few of the more secure and private medical and federal databases, it soon became blindingly obvious why one of them would have reason to hate mutants.
Warren DeSalles, a 48-year-old property dealer and financier, had lost his young wife and 7-year-old son in what seemed to be a freak accident. The news reports of the event told a tragic tale, describing how the pair had been in the wrong place at the wrong time, caught in a gas explosion that had destroyed a liquor store just as they'd been driving by, the blast turning their car into an inferno on wheels.
But, according to the police files that, it seemed, had been sealed at DeSalles' request, there'd been no gas leak. CCTV footage salvaged from the back room of the store, away from the site of the blast, had shown a couple of what had to be out-of-control New Mutants, out to use their powers for their own benefit and amusement, there with the intention of robbing the store. One of them, however, a thermal elemental, was obviously sick – so sick that he'd literally exploded into a ball of flames. He'd been moving towards the door as it happened, and it was that which had sent the main force of the blast outwards towards the passing car.
Adam had realised then what had made the man's name familiar to him – he'd read something about the incident at the time, coinciding as it did with the outbreak the previous year of Cladosporium, the virus stemming from an airborne spore that had caused so many New Mutants to lose control of their powers, and then their lives – a number that had almost included Jesse and Emma. He'd wondered vaguely then if there was more to the story, given the similarities with what had happened to Alice Robins when they'd been trying to help her, but with everything else that was going on he'd had no time to follow up. As the virus hadn't become common knowledge, though, it wasn't something that would have played any part in DeSalles' reasoning once he'd seen the tape. He would only know that his family had been killed by a self-destructing freak.
Medical records showed that he'd been admitted to an exclusive clinic for treatment for depression and substance abuse, staying there for several months. When he'd emerged again, he'd resumed his business affairs with an added aggression and coldness that had moved him to a new level in the local pecking order, both financially and, if reports were to be believed, in terms of peer respect for his new methods among less law-abiding elements. Socially, however, he'd become a recluse, splitting his time between his penthouse office and his bewalled mansion, surrounding himself with bodyguards to keep everyone else away from him.
However, there'd been no indication of any link with a private army forcibly abducting mutants, and Adam had been in agreement with his team when they'd jointly decided that they were going to have to get closer to the man if they were going to find out the truth. But now he wondered if he shouldn't have insisted on them taking more time – at least long enough for Jesse to come round.
He looked at Connie again, seeing her still watching him cautiously. "Stay with him a minute, just in case, OK?" he asked, waiting until she nodded her assent before moving away and activating the comms system to contact the others. After the briefest of preliminary niceties, which merely ascertained that they hadn't really had time yet to discover anything of note, Shalimar asked after Jesse, obviously worried that Adam's call might be bringing bad news.
"He's coming out of it, I think. That's why I was calling. Emma, I think he's dreaming again. Do you sense anything?"
There was a moment's silence before she responded, and he could imagine her staring unseeing into the middle distance as she did a mental check of that place where she kept whatever it was that allowed her to get some kind of emotional awareness of her friends if she needed to. But her tone was thoughtful when she finally said, "I think I'm too far away to get any detail. But there's... fear... anger... and..." She broke off with a gasp, and he could hear Shalimar's voice in the background raised in surprise and query. But it was mere seconds before Emma was back, her, "Adam, you have to wake him! Now!!" mingling with Connie speaking again from behind him, saying firmly, "Adam, he's kind of freaking - I *really* don't think he should be doing that!" and Adam whirled round to see Jesse convulsing against the bed, face contorting and soundless screams emanating from lips drawn back in a snarl of desperation and terror.
*
He was back in the never-ending nightmare again, struggling helplessly as the flames devoured her, screaming her name as she screamed out her final agony, sweat streaming down his face from the heat, from his efforts to free himself, soaking into the tattered fabric of his shirt. He screwed his eyes shut against the horrific scene, not wanting to see the grisly spectre she'd become, holding his breath to blot out the stench, wishing it could transport him away and cursing the noose-like band clamped around his throat that prevented it doing just that.
Something somewhere beyond the immediacy of his torment tried to reach him, tried to find a voice amidst the screams filling his head. A voice that called his name, that seemed to promise sanctuary from the guilt and pain and endless condemnation, and though he wanted to stay there, to share whatever eternity had in store for her, he found himself being swept away without the strength to fight any more. With a final whispered farewell that echoed through him as loud as anything that had gone before, he was forced to leave her and follow the sound through the darkness.
"Jesse? Come on, Jess, don't do this. Time to wake up now, OK? Please try, Jesse, please..."
And he emerged, panting with effort, into the light.
Adam saw the pale blue eyes flare open, wide with shock, to flicker almost unseeingly about him, heard the panicked gasps for air that wracked his body, felt the clammy sheen of sweat beading the skin beneath his fingers as he shook him in a desperate attempt to wake him from the dreamworld that had held him captive too long.
With relief he smiled, pleased to see some purpose start to return to the blue gaze. "Hey," he said gently. "Welcome back."
But it was as if Jesse hadn't heard him. Instead, eyes still moving jerkily round the room as if searching for something, he tried to push himself up on his elbows, fighting feebly against the restraining hand Adam placed on his shoulder. "Shalimar?" he called, his dry throat forcing the word out in a husky croak that still did nothing to hide the wealth of emotion behind it. "Shalimar!!"
"She's not here, Jesse. She's with the others, following a lead." Adam felt a surge of alarm at the intensity of his reaction.
"Noooo," Jesse wailed, head rolling fretfully against the cushioned pad. "No, couldn't save her, couldn't... Shalimar!!"
"It's OK, Jess, she's alright!" Trying to soothe and calm the obviously distraught molecular, Adam became aware of someone speaking to him, felt a hand tug at his arm, and shifted his attention enough to hear the disembodied words coming through the comms system. Shalimar's voice, almost incoherent, mixed with Emma's reassuring tones, and finally Brennan's deeper, "Adam? We're coming home."
****