Many apologies for the unintentionally lengthy delay in posting this next part - a combination of RL pressures and PC/ISP problems stopped me getting on line before I went on holiday for two weeks. Back now, though, so I hope the gap won't spoil things too much.

Thanks as always for your great feedback - it really is much appreciated...

-o-o-o-

Nine

"So... just how long do you expect us to go on doing this?" Unsurprisingly it was Brennan who broached the question that had probably been floating in all their minds through the last couple of abortive stops. But the response was quick and equally unsurprising.

"As long as it takes."

The elemental swung round in his seat to scowl back at the blonde sitting behind him, staring intently at whatever image she had displayed on her monitor.

"Look, Shal, I know how you feel - but this is crazy. If we were going to just stumble over him, don't you think we would have by now? We've been out here nearly 24 hours already. We need something more to go on than just sticking a pin in a map!"

"And we'll stay another 24 if needs be!" She hunched even further forward over her console, her voice dropping as she said, "He's close, I know he is."

"Oh, sure you do," Brennan scoffed irritably, swinging back to the controls again. "Now, if Emma said that I might..." But he was interrupted by what sounded like a pain-filled gasp from the third occupant of the Helix.

"Emma? What's wrong?" Shalimar asked as she reached a hand to steady the suddenly swaying psionic. "You look like you've seen a ghost!"

"I... I don't know - I just got the strongest hit off Jesse, just for a second. But it's gone now."

"What? What kind of hit? How is he?"

Emma raised enormous shock-filled blue eyes, standing out brilliantly against her almost bloodless skin, and Shalimar's stomach contracted into an even tighter ball in direct proportion to the strengthening grip her friend now had on her arm. "Hurting," came the whispered response. "Hurting so much..." and the feral found herself unable to tear her gaze away.

"Adam? You there?" Brennan queried tersely, alarmed by the intensity of the two women's reaction.

"I'm here," floated out of the ether almost instantly, telling him that their mentor hadn't been far away. "Have you found him?"

"Not exactly... but Emma just sensed something from him so he can't be a million miles away."

"What kind of something?"

Brennan hesitated only briefly before replying, "The not good kind." He tried to ignore the wild look Shalimar flashed him, continuing, "Have you come up with anything?"

"There's been nothing so far that seemed worth following up on, otherwise I would have passed it on. I'll take another look, though - hold on."

As the seconds ticked by to become minutes, the tension grew in the confined space of the cockpit until it became almost a living thing, feeding greedily on the occupants and pushing them to the limits of their already stretched self-control.

"What the hell is taking him so long," Shalimar snapped suddenly. "We can't just sit here - if something's happened to Jesse we have to find him before it's too late."

"Here we go again," Brennan muttered under his breath, earning himself a gold-tinted glare. "I think we're all pretty much clear on that - what we're still not clear on is where to look! Not unless Emma's learned how to GPS her remote contacts."

The telempath's head jerked up, startled out of her stunned-seeming state by the sound of her name to look uncertainly from one to the other of her friends. But before anyone could say more Adam's voice boomed out of the com-system again, and they didn't need Emma's sharp intake of breath to know he had bad news.

"Brennan? What's your current location?"

"We're just outside Clarksburg. Whatcha got?"

There was a pause before the older man went on, obviously while he checked their location. "Good, you're not far. I've been monitoring the police frequencies in the general area, but this report only just came in - a shooting, over in Parkway." Another brief silence, then, "I'm not positive, but from the description I think it might be Jesse."

"No..." The word was no louder than a sigh, but carried an ocean of emotion nonetheless. Shalimar's focus snapped back to Emma's face, seeing the heartfelt anguish there and hoping beyond hope she was misreading what it meant.

It was left to Brennan again to question Adam as he started up the plane's engines. "Any indication how bad it is? Or where they've taken him?"

"Bad," was the succinct reply, followed by the name of a hospital. "Listen, I know this is hard, but we need to make sure we get to him before they can run too many tests on him. I don't want to risk them finding out about his unusual genetic make-up, asking questions. Alive or..." He broke off suddenly, but they all knew exactly what he'd been about to say. "Well, I want you to get him back here, as soon as it's possible to move him."

"How the hell do you expect us to do that? The place is gonna be crawling with doctors, nurses, cops even - they're not exactly going to hand him over, just like that."

"And anyway, don't you think hospital is the best place for him? It's got to be worth the risk if it saves his life," put in Shalimar shakily, trying to repel the gruesome images of Jesse lying unmoving in a pool of his own blood that were trying to force their way into her head.

"With his mutancy it's hard to say how this kind of traumatic injury might make him react, even to the most basic of life-saving treatments, and at least here I know what I'm looking out for. If he's still alive, it may be his only real chance for long-term survival. You're resourceful people, you'll figure some way to get to him. Just do it fast!"

That sobering thought kept them all locked in their own thoughts as Brennan put pedal to metal and took the Helix sharply skywards.

-o-

White. Nothing but white, as far as the eye could see - though that didn't seem to be very far. The white of nothingness, emptiness, non-existence - at least, that's how it appeared to Jesse. Except that he was there in the middle of it.

Or was he? Maybe this was a dream and he wasn't really there at all. But dreams you woke up from and this didn't seem like it was ever going to end.

He'd tried calling out, but no-one had answered. He'd tried to find some way out, some doorway to somewhere else, but whichever direction he searched he always seemed to be in the same place. Here. Nowhere.

Time passed, he thought, but he had no idea how long. It could have been hours or even days before he realised there was someone else there with him. A small child, a little girl and somehow she was familiar though he couldn't remember from where or when. She seemed oblivious to him, though, immersed in some game or another, until he interrupted her hesitantly. "Hello?"

She looked up curiously, big brown eyes surveying him without fear. "Hello," she said. "Do you want to come play with me?"

When he shook his head her face fell a little, but with a small shrug she accepted his decision and immediately lost interest before his blurted, "Where am I?" brought her attention back his way.

"Where do you want to be?"

That surprised him because he really hadn't given any thought to what he truly wanted for what seemed like an age, only how to live with what he'd become. "Not here," was the best he could come up with.

"Why are you here, then?" she asked, with childlike logic.

Something else he had to ponder for a while. "Because... because I was looking for something, I guess. But I think I gave up hope of ever finding it, and it just seemed easier to stop trying."

She gazed earnestly at him, her expression far older than her apparent years, and he suddenly knew exactly who she was. "You've changed your mind, now that you're here." A statement, not a question, and his heart started to beat a little faster.

"Yes... now that I'm here. With you."

He held his breath, unsure what he was expecting to happen but strangely certain the next few moments held the key to his future existence - if he could just work out how to grasp this opportunity he'd been given.

And which was about to be taken away. Her eyes became distant suddenly, as if she was listening to something beyond his hearing. "They're calling me," she said with a serene smile. "It's time. I have to go now."

"Go? Go where?" he asked in confusion, the thought of being abandoned here by himself - wherever here was - making him unaccountably apprehensive. But, with a cheerful wave goodbye, she just began walking away from him, ignoring his desperate, "Wait! Don't leave me!" Mortified by the pathetic tremble in his voice, he took a deep breath to try and steady himself before he went on. "No! Please don't go, not yet. I need... I need to..." He shook his head in exasperation at his inability to get the words out, find the right way to say what he had to, even as she started to disappear into the whiteness beyond. "You shouldn't be here!" he finally managed to yell. "It was a mistake, an accident - it shouldn't have happened. This shouldn't be happening. They should be taking me, not you - it's my fault! Let me go instead."

That stopped her, if only briefly, and she turned with a girlish giggle to say, "No, silly billy. Don't you know anything? You can't go this way - you don't belong there. That's where you're meant to be." She pointed away past him, and when he glanced hurriedly back over his shoulder he was horrified to see a gathering gloom building there, like dark thunderclouds rent by the jagged fire of lightning. Well, if that was to be his fate, his punishment for his crimes, then so be it. But he couldn't go willingly, couldn't endure an eternity of damnation without knowing he'd done all he could to make his peace, and he knew even as he sought out his young companion again that he was running out of time.

From behind him somewhere he felt the encroaching blackness reaching out its tendrils to ensnare him, heard a murmur of unsettling sound that seemed to carry his name lost in its bewildering refrain. But he strove to ignore it, focusing his last burst of energy on the vanishing child as he called out, "Please... I'm sorry..."

A sharp ache started up in his chest, growing in intensity until he found it hard to breathe, but he clung on. Straining eyes and ears, he thought he saw her pause to look back just as she finally faded from view, the barely audible words, "I know," drifting his way on the growing breeze that swirled around him, lifting him up and sweeping him away. Light gave way to ominous dark, and he squeezed his eyelids shut against the overwhelming fear of what was to come, aware only of the pain and the deceptively seductive whispering voice pulling him to his doom and the disorienting sensation of tumbling endlessly, hopelessly downwards.

Until, with jolt that sent ribbons of agony rocketing out through his body to all his nerve endings, he stopped dead.

If he'd had his choice he would have just lain there, silent and still, in the hope he might go unnoticed by... well, by whoever - whatever might be around. But instead, accompanied by an uncontrollable gasp for the air his lungs seemed devoid of, his eyes flared open totally of their own accord to blink against the unexpected brightness of his surroundings.

A familiar face shimmered above him, surrounded by a golden halo - not hell then, he thought gratefully. Demons didn't wear halos, did they? And they certainly didn't smile and cry at the same time, or grip your hand like they were never going to let it go.

"Hey, you. 'Bout time you decided to join us. Was beginning to think you'd lost your way home."

He'd have liked to have answered, offered some reassurance, but talking seemed beyond him. And in any case, he wasn't completely sure if this was home - or even where home was - so it was easier to just try for an acknowledging nod.

A bad idea, apparently.

The pain flared briefly again with breath-taking results, then subsided into a welcoming numb fuzziness that wrapped around him like a blanket and carried him gently away to unknowing oblivion.

TBC