Once they had landed in the underground hangar, the New Mutants switched into their normal clothes while Hank and Jean placed the still unconscious mutant in the infirmary and set the machinery to monitor his vital signs.
After leaving the changing rooms, Steve and Caileen looked at each other with a look of awe. They slowly began to sign to one another in their own code that they had developed over the years for private talks.
It's impossible, said Caileen's hands in rapid succession.
There's no other possibility, went Steve's response. There's no one else he could be.
But, it can't be. There's no way he would have done what they say he did. Caileen's face showed her unwillingness to believe the accusations.
Look, Caileen, you saw the pictures. You've read the reports. You know that it was his house and family that got blown up. And even if there had ever been any doubt that it had been him, what we just saw out there proved that the explosion that destroyed everything before was his. We have to face the facts, whether or not he's our friend. He killed his family and endangered that little girl.
You actually believe that garbage that they publish on TV? Caileen couldn't believe her own brother was buying into what the mutant haters had been saying.
Look, I'm not saying that it was intentional. I'm not saying he did it on purpose. But we have to realize that he did it nonetheless. It's a good thing he's here now. The Professor can help him get his powers under control. Maybe then we can get our friend Johnathan back. Apparently finished with the conversation, Steve walked off towards the elevator and went back up to the school for some dinner.
Caileen instead walked towards the infirmary. She stood in the door watching her childhood friend lie there on the medical slab. She shook her head and turned towards the elevator. After an uncomfortable silence during dinner, she returned to her room and turned on her computer.
Accessing the Internet, she pulled up the articles that had been run on Johnathan Powell. She found horrible descriptions by witnesses of the screams the Powell family made as their horrible son disintegrated them. She found obvious lies in some reports that Johnathan had always been a troublemaker, involved in gangs, drugs, and such. That couldn't be farther from the truth. The truth was that, as a young child, Johnathan had been about as interesting as a plate of cold spaghetti. That was one of the reasons why she had never taken his boyish advances seriously. Caileen remembered how Johnathan had constantly hung around her trying to convince her that she would marry him one day. She had kind of been happy when her family moved away. They had still written for a long time afterwards, but he had continued to be the awkward weirdo. Then, the letters had stopped. It had been around the same time as the news articles said that Johnathan had destroyed his family.
The other girls came in from dinner and went to bed without saying anything. The only thing that seemed to be on everyone's mind was that they had saved a murderer this afternoon. Caileen got ready for bed herself and lay down. She waited till she heard the rhythmic breathing that told her the others had gone to sleep, and then she got up and quietly walked out of the room and towards the hidden elevator. Going down into the lower levels of the school, she got off at the floor with the infirmary. Caileen walked straight into the infirmary and sat down next to Johnathan's bed. She noticed that he had been dressed in some new pants while his chest had been left bare for the sensors to be placed there.
I don't think you did it. She thought as she looked at him. I don't believe it. You're not capable of murder.
You shouldn't assume what I'm capable of. She hadn't heard the reply so much as felt it in her mind. She was taken aback as she realized who had spoken to her. Looking down at Johnathan, she saw that he was still unconscious.
She began to form words in her mind, wondering if it would work. Johnathan, is that you? Can you hear me?
Yes, it's me. I can hear you.
If you're in there, she began, why don't you wake up?
I don't want to wake up. I don't want to live anymore. You should have left me there at that lab. It's not safe to be around me. People get hurt.
She knew what he was talking about. Johnathan, you can't be serious. You're no murderer.
Try telling that to my parents and Elizabeth.
Caileen remembered Johnathan's little sister. The two of them had never gotten along perfectly well, but they hadn't really hated each other. She reached out a hand to stroke his head, hoping he would feel it. When her fingers touched his head, she felt a wave of dizziness wash over her. She closed her eyes and shook her head to get rid of the feeling, but when she opened them again, she didn't see the infirmary anymore. She saw a modestly furnished room in a nice little house. Looking out the window, she could see a sunny day in what she assumed was summer. In the distance was a small mountain. She had never seen this house before. She wondered who's it was and how she got here.
The front door to the house opened and a young teen-age boy walked in. "Mom!" he shouted. "The lawn mower's out of gas again. I can't keep cutting the grass. Can I play some video games instead?"
"Sure, sweetheart," came the reply. "We'll go get some more gas in a little while." Caileen thought she recognized the second voice. It sounded like it probably belonged to the boy's mother. Caileen heard footsteps running down the hall. Turning, she saw an even younger teen-age girl running towards the video game console. Caileen's breath came up short in her chest as she recognized the little girl. It was Elizabeth. Now she recognized the boy and the mother's voice. This was Johnathan's family. But, they were all too young for it to have been recent. She noticed that no one noticed her.
Elizabeth began to fight over the video game with her brother. "I wanted to play! You play all the time. Mom! Tell him to let me play!" "Johnathan, play nice with your sister," came Mrs. Powell's voice from the bedroom. Johnathan grudgingly played a two player game with his sister.
"You know I had lied about the lawn mower." The voice came suddenly from Caileen's side. She jumped a little with fear and turned to see a grown version of Johnathan standing next to her. This one looked like Johnathan before he had been captured with his ratty hair and unkempt beard. "It was low on gas, but not out. I was just lazy and didn't want to keep cutting." Seeing that Caileen was remaining quiet, he said, "You can talk here. You're inside my head. No mutant powers to worry about." Seeing Caileen's look of disbelief he continued. "Think about it. You're in my head, and I'm in yours. I know why you don't talk, but it's safe here."
Caileen looked at Johnathan for a moment before speaking. "What day is this in your memory?"
"It's the day I found out I was a mutant."
They watched for a moment as the two young siblings played on the video game. After a few minutes, the door opened and a man Caileen recognized as Mr. Powell entered the house. "Johnathan, why isn't the yard cut?"
Before Johnathan could answer, his mom came down the hall and said, "He said the lawn mower was out of gas. Don't worry, we'll go get some in a while and he can finish it up."
Mr. Powell looked at his son for a moment. "It's not empty. It's low, but the yard could be finished with the gas that's in there."
Mrs. Powell looked at her son with disgust. "You lied to me, again? How could you? Walking over, she unplugged the video game and took the adapter. "You're grounded. No TV, video games, friends, anything. And I don't know how long this will last. You've got to learn to stop lying, Johnathan. I know that cutting the grass is no fun at all, but it's a job that needs doing. You've got to learn responsibility."
Johnathan stood up in anger and began to shout. "Why should I have to cut the grass? It's not my yard! I don't care if it gets three foot high! Why don't the two of you do it if you care so much about it?"
Mr. Powell walked over to Johnathan and slapped him across the face. "You watch how you talk to your mother! You will go out there and finish the yard, and then you'll go to your room till dinner. I've half a mind to throw that stupid video game away and be done with it. It causes nothing but problems. Your grades have dropped and your attitude is horrible. You'd best decide what's important to you right now, or you'll never accomplish anything in life!"
Johnathan replied with force. "You're always making me do the work around here! You don't care if I have other dreams of my own! It's always about what you want! You want this for me! You want that for me! I hate you!" Suddenly, he grabbed his stomach and fell over in pain. His parents knelt at his side asking him if he was alright. Elizabeth closed in as well. When Johnathan's eyes opened again, they were bright with energy. Before Caileen could even realize what was happening, she saw Johnathan explode into a bright ball of energy that engulfed everything around her. Johnathan's family didn't even get a chance to scream. Caileen noticed that the energy didn't hurt her. She realized that she was only watching the memory of what had happened before. When the energy faded, she saw a ball of condensing energy hovering in mid air in front of her. Just like at the mutant registration agency, the energy formed into human shape and Johnathan fainted to the ground. After a few seconds, he got up and ran from the house into the mountains.
Older Johnathan stepped up beside her. "Still think I'm innocent. I hated my family so much that I killed them."
Caileen looked him in the eye. "It was an accident. You didn't mean to. I know you, Johnathan. You didn't mean those words you said."
"But they were still the last words I said to them. They were the last things that they ever heard."
Another wave of dizziness swept over Caileen and she noticed that she was standing on a different street with houses all around her. There were no mountains anywhere. Johnathan was still standing next to her in the street. Looking down one side of the street, she saw a shoddily dressed vagabond walking down the side walk. She recognized him instantly as Johnathan, the current one. Looking down the other side of the street, she saw a beautiful little girl playing with a ball in her front yard. Her mom called her into the house, causing her to drop her ball which rolled into the street. The little girl chased it into the street. Johnathan looked and saw the girl entering the street. Caileen heard the screech of tires as a hotrod came roaring down the way, weaving back and forth on the street as if the driver was drunk. Caileen looked in horror as she realized that the little girl was about the get hit and killed.
She turned to the side to see Johnathan outstretching his hand toward the oncoming car. A bright light formed around Johnathan's hand and a beam of energy shot out towards the car. Johnathan's face was contorted as if he were straining to control the blast. The beam struck the car in the engine, causing it to stop dead in its tracks. The drivers were thrown through the windshield as they weren't wearing their seat belts. The shockwave caused by the energy hitting the car threw the little girl backwards and into a light pole, knocking her out.
Johnathan in horror ran over to the little girl, but her mom got there first and began to beg that Johnathan leave them alive. Caileen heard the sound of rockets over head and saw a sentinel, in all its horrible glory, landing on the street. It fired some sort of energy wave at Johnathan. Johnathan convulsed with the energy as it formed into a hard restraint around his arms and legs, immobilizing him.
The Johnathan standing next to Caileen looked on with disgust. "Once again, I hurt someone innocent. That little girl didn't deserve to be hurt, but I hurt her none the less."
"It was an accident," said Caileen. "You tried to save her. You didn't mean to hurt her. You just can't control your power yet."
"Yeah, I'm sure that that's a real comfort for the little girl and her mother."
As a third wave of dizziness swept over Caileen, she kept her eyes open and saw the neighborhood disappear and be replaced with the school infirmary. She looked at Johnathan's unconscious body on the slab and sighed. Looking up at the clock, she realized she had spent the entire night there. She hurried up to get some breakfast, thinking on what she had seen.