Disclaimer: Mutant X and its associated characters, locales, etc. are the property of Tribune Entertainment et al; my thanks to them. No copyright infringement is intended. Non-canon characters are my own, but feel free to use them. :)

Author's Note: Sorry this has been so long in the coming. I've been writing this by hand on lunch breaks and bus rides and never got around to typing it up until now. Thanks so much for all the reviews! Please continue to let me know what you think and to send suggestions. This part is mostly backstory, but be patient; it furthers the plot….

Four Mutants and a Baby: Chapter 5

by Deichtine

Adam covered the distance from the lab to the nursery in record time, and the scene he found there was enough to make him gape. Brennan, looking seriously freaked out, was sitting on the floor, staring at Siobhan, who was delightedly generating tiny lighting bolts and tossing them in all directions, then squealing with laughter.

"Oh, my God," Adam breathed.

Brennan jumped up. "You're reading my mind," he said, and nervously ran his hand through his hair, which was standing on end in the charged aether of the room.

"I don't get it, Adam. You said she wouldn't show her abilities for years yet. Heck, I didn't notice anything until I was six, and didn't have any real control until I was eight."

"I don't understand it either. There's no way she should be able to do this yet." He thought for a while, gazing down at the baby and chewing absently at his thumbnail. "Ah…Brennan," he said finally, his voice betraying that he was going to have to ask something he didn't want to say.

"Yeah?"

"You didn't…shock her, did you?"

Brennan's hackles rose and he turned away. "Yeah, sure, that'll get her to stop crying. Run a few volts through her." When he looked back, his eyesshowed hurt."Adam, what do you think I am?"

Adam put his hands up in an apologetic gesture. "I'm sorry, I know you wouldn't do that. I shouldn't even have thought it. But I can't think of why she would have started now, after all the time she's been here."

"Well, I didn't shock her, but I did hold a littleelectricity in front of ther." He demonstrated. "I was trying to distract her, that's all. It was totally under control." At Adam's considering look, Brennan continued, "What, do you think that might have caused it?" he asked.

Adam finally shook his head. "If her body wasn't ready, she couldn't have started so much as a spark. No, Brennan, you may have given her an idea, but you're not responsible. Plus, from the level of control she's showing, I would guess she's done this before."

"But how?"

Adam bent down to pick up Siobhan, wincing as a tiny, low-voltage lightning bolt hit him on the chin. "Come on down to the lab. When you called, I think I was on to something that may help to explain this."

The baby was asleep again and Brennan had finally gone to bed. Adam was just cleaning up the lab for the night when the call came in. This time she was calling from an old-fashioned phone; there was no visual.

"Did you find her?" Siobhan's mother's voice over theline was low and husky from crying, trembling with a vain attempt to control her emotions.

"Yes, we did. She's safe with us. But now, you know youowe us some answers."

"I couldn't keep her safe. Mr. Kane, you have to understand." She sounded perilously close to breaking down again, and Adam moved quickly to keep her talking.

"What's your name?" he asked gently. Whenshe hesitated, he soothed,"Trust me. This line is secure. No one can hear you but me."

"It's Anne."

"I know you're running from someone, Anne. We can help you. Why don't you come to us?"

"I can't. They're too close. They'd find you, and then there'd be no one left to protect Siobhan."

"We can protect you both, Anne, and you can stay with your daughter."

Her voice shook harder, nearing the breaking point. "No. No one can protect me. If I'm separate from her, Siobhan has a chance."

"Who are you running from?"

There was a pause, and Adam could hear her take a deep breath. "I can't tell you."

"You have to give me something. Her father, where is he?"

"She doesn't have a father."

"Were you aware when you gave her to us that Siobhan is already showing evidence of her gifts?"

Her eyes widened. "What…what do you mean?"

"What's your mutancy, Anne?"

"I'm an elemental. Thermal."

Adam nodded. It made sense. Especially if the father were also an Elemental. "Siobhan is an electrical Elemental – and she's already throwing off sparks."

"But that's impossible. Isn't it?"

"It should be. Look, you owe us an explanation. Siobhan is a wonderful girl, but by leaving her with us you've involved us in whatever it is you're dealing with. We're prepared to do whatever we can to protect you both, but you've got to give us something to work with." There was an anxious silence.

"If you don't tell us who's after you," Adam continued, more gently, "We won't be prepared when they come for Siobhan. And you know they will."

He heard Anne take a deep breath; she had made her decision. "Siobhan doesn't have a father because she was engineered. In the process the DNA of several promising Elementals was combined."

"What was the goal?" Adam asked.

"Initially, it was just to see if it could be done – test the hypothesis. They expected her to become a kind of super-elemental, with two, maybe even three kinds of abilities."

"How did you get involved?"

"I was…well, forcibly recruited, you might say." Her voice now held bitterness and anger. "Last year, my husband and I were trying to get pregnant. We had tried all sorts of things, but we were nervous about letting our family doctor look at us too closely because–well, for obvious reasons."

"Your husband is also a mutant?"

"Yes, feral."

Adam couldn't supress a small smile. "Seems like a popular pairing," he murmered. "Please, continue."

"Finally, we made the worst decision of our lives. We went to Genomex."

Adam slowly released the breath he hadn't been aware he was holding. Of course. It always led back to Genomex.

"We didn't know what it had become. We lived quiet lives, never used our powers in public. We didn't even know about each other's mutancies until three years after we were married, when he got home early and saw me cooking a meatloaf without benefit of an oven." Her voice seemed to be calming now - Adam thought the memory was probably grounding her.

"And what happened when you went to Genomex?"

"We thought the reason we couldn't conceive had to lie in the changes to our DNA, our mutations, so we walked right in and asked to see a geneticist. They were quite excited – looking back, it must have been amazing to them, that two new mutants would just walk in together and say 'Study us.'"

Adam nodded, scratched his eyebrow. He could just see Eckhart's face. They might as well have tied on a bow.

"The first thing they did was implant us both with subdermal governors. They told us they were devices for regulating hormone production. And we went along, little lambs to the slaughter. And in the end they did look at our fertility problems, and we were right. Barring intervention, Mike and I would never have conceived. Genomex did intervene, oh yes, but Mike had nothing to do with it. He was of no use anymore, except as a hostage to ensure my cooperation. And in the end, even that didn't help him. They locked him in a stasis pod two months after they were sure the embryo had implanted. They had a new hostage: Siobhan.

"When she had grown enough they did an amniocentesis and ran a scan on her DNA, and suddenly everyone started getting excited. They wouldn't tell me anything, but they kept pointing at the screen, phoning up to Harrison's office. It was like they'd totally forgotten about me, there in the exam bed. I never did find out what they saw, but I kept hearing the phrase 'unexpected results'.

"I think it was at that point that it finally sunk in; when Siobhan was born, they would never let me keep her. They would want to raise her themselves to be loyal to Genomex. And so I started planning my escape.

"I decided to run as soon as Siobhan was born and I had recovered. But I didn't get the chance."

Adam, who had been listening raptly, found his voice. "Did they discover your plans?"

"No. A week before Siobhan was due, the Strand took over Genomex. I escaped in the confusion and hid out at a battered women's shelter for a few days, but I had to leave before Siobhan was born–they'd have insisted on registering the birth. She was born in a blind alley, with a couple of friendly prostitutes attending."

Adam listened with wide eyes, astonished at what this woman had been through. "That's incredible," he said quietly.

"I lived in and out of shelters for a little while," Anne continued. "I watched what was going on with mutants in the city–and I never saw a single GSAgent. So finally I got up my courage and went back to our house. She was waiting for me in the living room."

"Who?"

"Nichole Page."

Just then, the lab door opened, and a sleepy-looking Shalimar walked in, carrying a fussy Siobhan. "Adam," the fatigued feral complained, "I can't get her to sleep. It's your turn to try."

Siobhan whined pitifully, and from the phone console came a stifled sob. "Oh, God, Siobhan. My sweet one." At the sound of her mother's voice, Siobhan stopped fussing, but made interrogative noises, looking around for the familiar face.

"Anne, please," Adam said quietly, "come to us. You don't have to be separated from Siobhan any more."

Shalimar handed the baby to Adam,and she immediately began to cry and reach back toward Shalimar.

"Okay. I'll come. Just tell me where."

End of Chapter 5.

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