Brennan had immediately walked over to the pilot's chair when they entered the Double Helix. Flying it always reminded him of a game he played when he was younger. He hadn't crashed yet, and his record on the game was ten minutes and thirty-two seconds so he figured he must be better at it than anyone else.

Having worse navigational skills than those of a tourist with a map of the subway, Brennan had taken a wrong turn just past the exit tunnel.

"Brennan, you're going the wrong way!" Shalimar said moments later having noticed this due to her innate sense of direction. Also, there was a big flashing sign saying 'YOU'RE GOING THE WRONG WAY BRENNAN' on all the computer screens.

"Am not."

"Are too."

"Am not."

This went on for three hours, at which point the message changed to 'OH NEVERMIND, WE'RE HALF WAY THERE ANYWAY'.

"Argh!" said Shalimar and promptly shut up. Brennan smirked. He never liked back-seat drivers, even ones as beautiful as Shalimar. Throughout all this Emma had been sitting giggling at something on her computer screen and Adam stared at a point on Brennan's back.

Four hours later (Brennan had stopped for a bite to eat in Italy) they arrived at the abandoned warehouse, only six hours and fifty-five minutes late.

"Jesse!" Emma said, spotting the fourth member of Mutant X (who was allowed to be named in this scene) lurking in the shadow of the warehouse. "What are you doing here? I thought you were doing something."

Jesse opened his mouth to reply but Brennan cut him off.

"Doesn't matter now, you just go fly the Double Helix. Remember, you need to be close enough to monitor us but far enough away so that if anything happens you can't help. Come on Shal, let's go." Shalimar and Brennan headed towards a door in the warehouse as Jesse lifted the Double Helix and circled at the exact right height above the warehouse.

Inside the warehouse, Brennan peered into the darkness. His little jaunt around the world meant that it was now 10pm and he couldn't see further than a few feet in front of him. Shalimar's eyes flashed gold in a way that looked similar to, but wasn't quite like, the Goa'uld in Stargate. Brennan searched in his pocket for a lighter as Shalimar disappeared in front of him.

"Oh my god! Brennan, there's…" Shalimar shouted, but she was cut off, like a person who has just been thrown across the room would be. As Brennan searched even more frantically for his lighter he could here the sounds of fighting, as well as some other unidentifiable noises. The door burst open behind him and Brennan turned to see Adam, Emma, and someone else.

"Found it!" he exclaimed, pulling out his lighter and lighting it. For a moment, he wondered if it had managed to light up the whole warehouse but when he turned around he realised that Someone Else was really Jesse and he had found the light switch.

At the far side of the warehouse, Shalimar was being dragged out of another door. Brennan started to run after her but Emma restrained him.

"No Brennan, it's too early." She said to him.

"Early? Don't you mean too late?" Brennan replied confused.

"No, too early. The fic can't end yet – Shalimar hasn't been tortured, you haven't whined about not being able to save her, Adam hasn't given a pep talk, you haven't found out what I was laughing at on the Double Helix, there's no opportunity for…er…" Emma waved her hand in Someone Else's direction "him to save the day yet receive no thanks for it, and all the endless possibilities of things to be made fun of hasn't been exhausted yet. We've still got lots to do." She smiled at him and walked out the door.

"Oh." Brennan said. The confused expression left his face only to return moments later with friends, as birds migrating tend to do. He ran after Emma. "You were laughing at something on the Double Helix?"

Someone Else turned off the lights.