Disclaimer: Mutant X and its associated characters, settings, etc. are the copyrighted property of Tribune Entertainment. Their use in the present work is purely not for profit and no infringement of anyone's legal rights is intended.
Author's Note: Again, thanks for all the encouragement! You guys are the best. I hope to have this wrapped up in a couple of chapters. The scene between Nichole Page and Anne is very cliched, but I don't have the energy to rewrite it, and it had to happen. So just grin and bear it, people. :)
Spoiler alert: ep. 216, "Once Around", and Season 2 power capabilities
Four Mutants and a Baby: Chapter 7
by Deichtine
When Brennan awoke, he was alone in the lab. His left foot was swathed in an inordinate amount of bandages, making it twice the size of his right. Gingerly, he reached down to prod the bandaged foot, and judging by what he felt, he was sure that the wound did not need to be so heavily bandaged. Adam had obviously decided that he didn't want Brennan picking and poking at the healing area. He's only known me two years, and he already knows me way, way too well, Brennan thought with a wry smile.
He swung himself around and hopped lightly down from the exam bed onto his good foot, hanging on to the edge of the bed for support. A wheelchair sat waiting nearby, within easy reach, but he ignored it. He was not an invalid. He would stay vertical and mobile - prove to Adam that he could stay vertical and mobile, or he knew that when the time came to go after Anne, he would be left behind.
Forcing himself to move naturally, he moved out of the lab and down the concourse, using short, controlled blasts of what Shalimar liked to call his "rocket boy power" as a crutch for his sore foot. He had been practising using that power in fight situations so much that it was now almost second nature.
The rest of the team was gathered around the breakfast table, chatting lightly, some of them still in their pyjamas. Brennan amicably shoved Jesse aside to make room for himself at the table, folded his legs and sat down, returning their greetings and assuring them that he felt fine. Jesse grabbed at his bruised ribs in mock agony and elbowed Brennan in the side.
Adam, however, was looking sternly at him. "You know you're not supposed to be walking yet," he said.
"Yeah, well, I figure there's no point letting a little scratch keep me down. Not when we've got nut jobs out there on the loose. Em, you want to pass the pancakes?"
"Brennan, I'm serious. You had some serious damage in that foot of yours, and if you want to be able to keep on fighting, you've got to take care of it."
"I know. I will. Don't worry, Adam, I know my limits. So where's everyone's favourite diaper factory?"
Siobhan and Emma exchanged a look; Jesse snickered. "Siobhan's taking a nap. She didn't sleep well last night," Emma said. "I got definite flashes of worry from her - I think she senses that something's wrong with her mother."
"What, is she psionic, now, too?" Jesse asked.
Adam shook his head. "I don't think so, but she could very well be picking up on our subconscious cues, our emotions." Emma shook her head, but didn't press the issue further. "But now that we're all here - however we got here" - at this point he threw another dark look at Brennan - "we need to decide how we're going to get Anne back. I want to hear suggestions, people."
There was a long period of silence. The team members glanced uneasily at each other.
"Well...," Emma began uncertainly, "is there any way we could use the holograms again? The way we did when Jesse impersonated Vic Collaruso?"
Adam thought for a moment, then shook his head. "I don't see how we could. The only one who needs impersonating is Siobhan, and frankly you're all a little too big." There were smiles around the table. "No, I don't see how it could come into play."
There was another long silence. "What about a straight confrontation?" Brennan asked. "Show up, attack, take her back by force."
"Given the result of the last encounter you had with them, I'm not going to send you up against them in a straight assault in your condition. Even if none of you were injured, I wouldn't. That's the one sure way we have of making sure Anne gets killed. There's no guarantee she'll even be at the meet - the deal was just that if we hand over Siobhan, she wouldn't be killed. No, no, the key is to outsmart them somehow."
"Well, then we need to know more about them," Jesse said. "But Shal and I have searched for hours and come up empty."
"Counterthreat," Brennan said. "Siobhan's the one they really want. Tell them that if they kill Anne, we kill Siobhan." Three aghast faces stared at him, and he threw up his hands defensively. "I don't mean really do it. Just threaten it. Yikes."
"It wouldn't work anyway. As long as they have Anne, they can recreate their experiments. They just don't want to wait that long. They have the higher card, and they know it," Jesse said.
"You know...," Adam said slowly, "that might not be precisely right. Brennan may be on to something here. It takes two to tango, after all. Or, in Siobhan's case, it took several."
"What are you talking about?" Shalimar asked, spearing a strawberry savagely with her fork.
"Siobhan's fathers," Emma said, catching on.
Adam pointed at her and smiled. "Bingo. Anne told me that when Siobhan was engineered they used the DNA of 'several promising elementals' to provide the male half of the conception equation. That DNA probably belonged to elementals in Genomex's possession, either people they had kept in pods, or agents, or frozen samples. My guess is that this group no longer has access to such a range of new mutant DNA, certainly not the same fathers. They may very well not be able to reproduce the experiment."
"I don't know how that changes things," Shalimar said. "We still can't threaten Siobhan."
"You're right there, Shalimar," Adam responded. "They would never believe the bluff. Anyone who knows anything at all about Mutant X knows what we stand for; they know we would never hurt a baby. I think, though, that we need to find something they want even more than they want Anne or Siobhan, and right now our only leads are Nichole Page and the fathers who contributed their DNA to Siobhan. Time for some paternity tests."
-----
"Anne. So good to see you again." The tall redhead stood over the seated woman and watched with mild interest as the optical inhibitor was removed and Anne's eyes cleared.
Anne looked around, trying to find some indication of where they were. She had been drugged out shortly after the car ride began, and given her loss of vision, had entirely lost her sense of direction. They were alone in a small, glass-walled room, but through the walls Anne could see that this cell was within a much larger room, high-ceilinged like a school gym. The glass room was raised slightly, and Anne could look down and see professionally-clad people moving busily to and fro between computer stations, going about their business with practised efficiency. The transparent walls blocked the steady gentle noise one would expect from such an animated work floor, and Anne, watching them, found their busy silence almost eerie. There was nothing to identify where they were or what company they were working for, but Anne had never seen anything like it at Genomex.
"Welcome to my world," Page said, watching Anne's reaction to her surroundings.
"What is this place?" Anne asked.
"This, my dear friend, is a research facility older even than Genomex. Like our dear old alma mater, its focus is genetic manipulation, but with two very important differences: This place never had any affiliation with the American government, and we never had any bleeding hearts like Paul Breedlove holding us back."
"What will it take to get you to leave me and Siobhan alone? Money? I don't have much, but I'll try, I'll find it, I swear."
Page cut her off with a gesture. "Look, this isn't just some petty kidnapping for ransom here. It's not money we're after. We'll have enough of that and to spare once we sell the results. Right now we just want our property back."
Anne's eyes flashed, her intimidation turning to hot anger in an instant. "Siobhan is not your property, and neither am I. Adam and his friends will never give her to you, and you'll never find her there."
Nichole threw back her head and laughed, long crystalline peals of laughter that reverberated with the transparent walls. When her laughter subsided and she looked down once more and Anne's eyes met hers, Anne could see madness there, and victory. "Oh, Anne. You were smart to go to them, really. If anyone could have protected you, it'd have been Mutant X. But no one can. You see, this has been part of the plan since the beginning. Capturing you was only a pretext. You see, in the fight in the alley we planted a homing device on the empath girl, one that would disintegrate before it was detected. And when they come for the meet in a couple of days, they'll want to show up ready to fight. They won't leave much of a guard at home. So you see, not only are we going to find Adam's little lair, but we are going to reclaim Siobhan." She motioned to the guard outside to open the door to let her pass, then paused in the doorway to look back condescendingly. "And if you're very good," she said, in that horrible voice that great-aunts are accustomed to use with kids well into their teens, "we might just let you see her now and again."
Anne struggled uselessly against her bonds, tried to send a wave of searing heat at the horrible woman, but she was inexperienced and clumsy with her powers, and the pain of the governor in her neck made her writhe, so that all she accomplished was to burn her hands on the arms of the chair.
"Damn you," she whispered to the empty room. "Damn you!" she shouted, but it was unclear even to her whether she meant the words for Page, Adam, or herself.
-----
By the next evening, they were no further ahead in their search for more information, and as Adam had been holed up in the lab almost constantly since thie rbreakfast conference, running endless simulations with the DNA of known elementals, the four young mutants were gathered in the lounge. They were sagging back into the armchairs, allowing their exhaustion to take over for awhile, while Siobhan sat and played on a blanket in front of them.
"So how come you're so jumpy around Siobhan, anyway, Brennan?" Jesse asked finally, breaking the silence.
Brennan didn't look up from the teddy bear he was idly posing in martial arts positions. "I'm not jumpy," he protested mildly. "I'm just not really good with kids."
Shalimar gave him a knowing, disbelieving look which Emma mirrored. "Oh come on," the blonde said. "Every time you get close to her you're like a cat on a sinking ship."
"A what?"
"Cats hate the water." They continued to stare at her. "Oh, never mind. Whatever."
"Look, I like Siobhan as much as the rest of you and I'll do my best for her, but I admit, I'm not comfortable having her here. This is Mutant X, not the babysitter's club." He added under his breath, "The babysitter's club would be better qualified."
"You know what I think?" Emma said, sitting up suddenly.
"What?" Brennan asked suspiciously.
"I think you haven't held her once since she came," Emma said, standing up. She scooped up the baby and, before Brennan had a chance to react, she plopped her down in his lap.
"What the?" Brennan said, grabbing the child to make sure she didn't fall. "Emma, no. I don't do babies."
Emma sat down again in her own chair with an arch expression. "Well, then, isn't it time you learned?"
"I'm not going to dignify that with a response," Brennan growled, doing his best to ignore the grins of his friends. Gingerly he took hold of Siobhan around her torso - his fingers were so long that they touched across her back - and turned her around so that she was facing him.
Immediately she grinned, let loose a delighted squeal of laughter, and grabbed Brennan's nose hard between her fingers.
"Ow!" he said, more from startlement than actual pain, and the others erupted into laughter. He lifted her up from his lap, intending to pass her off to Jesse, but as he lifted her, she put her legs down to stand upright on his knees, and Brennan had to stop in surprise. "Hey, look, she's standing," he said. "I mean, I'm keeping her balance, but she's supporting her own weight." The others exchanged a look of pure amusement.
"Yeah, most babies can do that surprisingly early," Shalimar said.
"But she's so strong," Brennan said, still surprised.
Just then, there came a loud, low, bubbling noise, and a familiar smell filled the air. "Gagh!" Brennan said with disgust, lifting her up and away from him. "I think she just dropped a load."
Jesse leaned over, stretched the elastic of Siobhan's diaper and looked inside. "Yup," he said, sitting back again. "She sure did. Congratulations. You get to change your first diaper."
Brennan shook his head firmly, his jaw set. "No way. Not on your life. Diapers are women's work."
Emma and Shalimar gaped at him, and Jesse just shrugged and sat back to watch them tear his tall friend apart. "What is this, the caveman days?" Emma asked.
"Me Brennan. Me big man, strong hunter. Me hunt wild boar, have meat many days," Shalimar mocked in a deep, gravelly voice.
"Oh, come off it," Brennan said, letting go Siobhan with one hand long enough to throw the teddy bear at Shalimar's head. "I just meant, Siobhan's a girl. A girl should change her. I have no business looking at her - down there."
"Why, I do believe he's blushing," Emma said, but Shalimar just pushed herself up from her chair.
"Come on," Shalimar said. "I'll show you what to do. It's easy, and she'll never remember that you saw her naked."
Still holding the baby straight out in front of him, standing tall despite his wounded pride, Brennan followed Shalimar to the nursery, but a part of him couldn't shake the suspicion that somehow they had all planned this between them. Siobhan smiled, waved her hand, and sent a tiny lightning bolt to hit him in the chest.
End chapter 7
As always, comments, questions, and criticism are most welcome at ierneATexciteDOTcom.