Part VIII

AN: [ ] = sign language

Adam walked into the medilab to find Eber holding a tissue to a bloody nose and Brennan with a bag of ice resting on the large bruise forming on his chin.

"What happened?" He gasped.

"Brennan was a little over enthusiastic in welcoming Eber to Sanctuary." Jesse offered.

"Hey, how was I supposed to know they she was on our side?" Brennan demanded.

"So you'd attack any feral you found in Sanctuary?"

"She flashed her eyes at me!"

"She was dark and she was trying to find out who you were. You can't blame her for defending herself." Eber had given up on following the fast paced argument and lay back on the bed closing her eyes. A touch on her shoulder made her open them again.

"You need to stay upright." Adam advised. "So you don't swallow the blood." She nodded, sitting back up and checking on Jesse and Brennan. They were still arguing, seemingly oblivious of the others in the room.

"Is it broken?" Adam asked as she turned back. "Your nose." He repeated, seeing his questioning look. "Is it broken?" She shrugged. "Is it still bleeding heavily?" She moved the tissue and dabbed at it for a moment and then shook her head. "Lay back and let me scan it. It won't take a second. It's nice to see you awake by the way." She grinned.

[Thanks.] She signed before lying back again.

[You're welcome.] He signed back. She shot upright, her expression saying everything words could not.

"Though you may have been sleeping we have not. Jesse and Sharon have been teaching me." He smiled. "Now lay back so I can scan you." The beam sped quickly over her face and Adam checked over the results before turning back to her.

[Do you know much?] She asked, curious.

[Your nose is... fine.] He replied slowly. [Your eyes...] He stumbled trying to find an equivalent. "Are nearly fully restored." He settled for saying.

[Good.] She grinned.

"Thank you." Seeing that Brennan and Jesse seemed to have finished their argument and were now at opposite ends of the room sulking, Adam turned back to them.

"Welcome home Brennan. It's been very quiet without you."

"Thanks Adam." He replied a little gruffly.

"Now I think we should all go back to bed for at least another hour. Even you, young lady, otherwise your body clock will be all put out."

Expecting to be filled with energy after her extended sleep she was surprised when she woke later that morning to find light streaming into the room and Sharon already gone. She woke with a feeling of expectancy, a tingling in her fingertips and buzzing in the back of her skull. Sitting up in bed she closed her eyes and breathed in deeply, preparing herself for the coming day. Even as she began to rise she was caught by a thought, as you would be caught by a smell or the sight of something moving out of the corner of your eye. She stopped, trying to find it again.

"Eber..." The word whispered through her raising the hairs on the back of her arms.

"Sharon?" She replied. "How...?"

"The dojo." The whisper replied before fading, leaving her feeling cold. Opening her eyes she made her way quickly out to the dojo. There she found Adam and Sharon sitting on the edge of the structure, she met Sharon's eyes quickly.

"How?"

"Magic." She grinned. "Adam's been training me." She explained at the roll of Eber's eyes. "It's hard, and I can't hear you. But you heard?"

"Yes, and I felt it. You woke me." Sharon's eyes widened.

"Really? How are you feeling? Adam said you were suffering from fatigue, that's why you slept so long."

"I'm not sleepy any more. I feel good."

"And your eyes?" Eber thought for a moment.

"I can't explain to you what I see. Can I show you?" Sharon nodded and Eber sat down beside her on the dojo. Resting her head in the crook of Sharon's neck Eber breathed out deeply as Jesse would to phase and took hold of Sharon's hand.

They were stood in a room, as Adam and Jesse had been, but this room was obviously different. Whereas Jesse and Adam's memory rooms had extended out into a white expanse where memories grew old and faded, pushed to the very back of the room, Eber's did not. Even from where they stood in the very centre of the room the edges were visible. Dark looming walls which reached upwards with no visible ending. The walls had been moving slowly away as Eber's memory room filled with new memories made since the placement of that wall, but all that was beyond it was lost to her. Sharon spared the wall a glance and turned back to Eber who was enthusiastically searching though the memories, dodging the ones that swung past her at speed. She quickly found what she was looking for and called Sharon over.

"Last night I saw someone come into Sanctuary, I saw the shadows move with my normal eyes. And I was worried because Jesse got all tense and so my feral eyes... activated. How ever you're supposed to describe that. And this is what I saw." She took hold of Sharon's hand and dived into the memory. Sharon blinked for a moment, a strange type of brightness filling her eyes and making her want to squint. The world around her was coloured in yellow and bright sepia tones. A man that Sharon recognised as Brennan from the other's memories stood in front of her outlined so sharply it seemed you might be able to cut yourself on his edges. A door behind him showed a passageway with cars at the end. She could see the anger and confusion cross his face, the tension in his muscles. She stepped back and they both slipped back out of the memory.

"Isn't it beautiful?" Eber asked, as Sharon gasped.

Much of the rest of the day was spent in the main hall, with Adam and Sharon working on meditation techniques and mind exercises and Jesse and Eber working on more physical exercises. With no training Eber had always fought tooth and nail with anyone who came up against them. It had been effective, but Jesse hoped to provide her with a little more advanced fighting skills. If they were to join Mutant X they would need them.

Every so often they would see Brennan prowling the hallways of Sanctuary impatiently as if waiting for something.

"You're replacing them, aren't you Adam?" It only took to the end of the day to find out what he was waiting for. "We're nothing to you individually. It's all about the team. Shal and Emma are only just gone and you're trying to replace them with a couple of kids." Sighing, Adam turned from the computer console to face Brennan. He had known this was coming, he hadn't expected him to wait so long.

"Brennan, calm down and listen to me."

"No, Adam. You listen to me for once. This team is just that. A team. You don't make decisions for us without asking us first." Adam looked up as Jesse appeared in the doorway.

"What's going on?" He asked, sensing the tension in the room.

"Oh nothing." Brennan spat. "Adam's just trying to rule our lives again."

"Adam?"

"I'm trying to explain to Brennan how important the team is." Jesse looked quietly from one to the other.

"You're fighting over Sharon and Eber." He guessed correctly.

"I was going to talk to both of you before I did anything more than offer them training, Brennan."

"Yeah, you might have talked to us, but would it have been anything more than telling us that they would be joining us, no objections allowed?"

"I wouldn't do that..."

"Screw that, Adam. You're always doing that to us. Sticking us in situations without telling us all the facts, hiding things from us. What ulterior motive do you have this time eh?"

"Brennan, stop it. You're pushing this too far." Jesse warned.

"The team needs to be whole, Brennan. Especially now. We're too vulnerable as we are, we need to be complete and as strong as we can be."

"And you think two kids can make us strong!? One of them is deaf, for christ's sake. That's really gonna help the team."

"It's not their individual strength, it's the strength of the team as a whole. They need training, but we can give them that."

"Training is one thing Adam, but this is adopting orphans. You can't..."

"Don't tell me what I can't do Brennan." Adam shouted, his temper finally flaring up. "Shalimar and Jesse were both children when they came to live at Sanctuary. Just because we pulled your sorry ass off the streets doesn't mean we won't throw you back out there."

"Oh, so that's it now is it?" Brennan scoffed.

"There's more than one person I can think of who would be perfect for your place on Mutant X. I didn't choose to put you on this team, that was Emma. You..."

"STOP IT!" Sharon flinched as three sets of eyes caught hers, slamming her with images of the past. A team who had stood together, united in everything but blood. A family torn apart.

And for a moment they could have been fooled. Perhaps they had just been sleeping and their argument had woken them. Some big ruse, Shalimar's teasing grin, Emma's apologetic one.

But the intense brown eyes which would battle to outstare you were blue and now fixed to the floor, the hair a little too straight and the face behind her a little too dark. No, it wasn't them. The misplaced hope died quietly as they looked away from each other, embarrassed at the heights their argument had reached. Adam turned back first.

"I'm sorry. You have to understand, this isn't about you. We would have had to have done this anyway."

"Whatever you've been doing to me Adam, it's been opening me up. The memories that you're throwing around, you all reject them." Sharon explained. "You don't want to think about them. It's hurting you more than you would ever know. You have to accept the memories or they will destroy you. You need to remember the good things or all that they will ever mean for you is pain. It's hurting ME, and I'm not even connected to you, to them. I could feel it from my room."

"We didn't mean to wake you." Brennan apologised.

"We're going to leave tomorrow. Thank you for your offer Adam, but it's too early for you. You have a lot of things to sort out before you try and take on new people. You'll never have a stable group if you three can't act as a strong base for the newcomers. Thanks for what you've done for Eber, you've given her back something she didn't know was missing and she's very grateful." Sharon smiled. "We'll see you tomorrow." She said quietly before following Eber back to their room.

AN: I have decided I don't like how often this is referring back to 'Pain'. I think this will be the last time. Don't panic, this isn't the end!