It's been a while, I'm sorry. Had a bit of writer's block. But I'm okay now, so I made this quite a long chapter. Enjoy!
* * *
Loki didn't really like leaving Lexa in that place, but he knew better than to underestimate the other Chromatic. Five-six years ago, Lexa could take anyone but Loki wasn't sure her mind was as clear as it was before. Especially with the way she looked at Jesse. 'Well it's about time', Loki mused. 'I have a better feeling about Jesse than I did Carter.'
"Loki," Andy had called him out of his reverie. "Loki, are you there?"
Loki blinked a few times before answering. "Yeah, what is it, Andy?" Snapping back into reality, he realized that they were moving outside while he was thinking. Shalimar and Brennan were about five feet ahead of them while Andy stayed back with Loki. They walked in damp green grass that Loki took comfort in while it made his bare feet wet.
"Are you okay? You kinda blanked out," she said, her worry consuming her.
Loki wrapped his bare arm around her and squeezed her tight. "Oh come on, Andy. The youngest carefree Burton worried?" he asked, as if reading her thoughts.
"Ha!" she sarcastically laughed. Andy was never carefree, out of the both of them, Andy was the most uptight. But since Loki was an petty thief and car booster, that wasn't saying much. "Right!"
Shalimar stopped and turned back. "Come on, you can have this conversation later," she urged.
Loki rolled his eyes and gently pushed Andy forward. Walking past Shalimar, he leaned closer to her. "Are you always this uptight or it's just because you don't want to lose such a gorgeous guy."
Shalimar smiled ever so poisonously. "Yeah, let me know when you see one," she said in a sexy voice.
Loki walked past and grimaced. "Ouch!" He clutched his chest in drama. Loki turned around and pointed to her. "I like 'you'."
* * *
Jesse took out his palm pilot to view the progress of the lock down. "It's still on, I don't know when they're going to open all the doors," he explained. His blue eyes traveled to the door where Lexa was standing, blasting the hell out of it with her lasers. Jesse pocketed the palm pilot and stood up, he walked in front of her between blasts.
Lexa put her hands on her hips and raised her eyebrows. "If you don't have any other ideas, Jesse. Then get out of my way."
Jesse closely inspected Lexa, her wavy brown hair was dampened because she had worn herself out using her powers over and over again. Jesse put his hands on her shoulders. "Well, working yourself past exhaustion isn't going to open the door, Lexa." He gently pushed her farther away from the door to the wall. "Here, sit down."
Lexa was too tired to argue with him, and she didn't want to have extra tension between her and Jesse if they were going to be staying in this room for quite some time. She let him back her up into the wall and she slid down into a sitting position. Jesse stepped to the left of her and sat down too. "So, what's your guess on how long we'll be here?" she inquired.
Jesse groaned and let his legs spread out. "Mmm, I have no idea. An hour, maybe two. It isn't easy to lock down a building and then open it up again."
Lexa groaned and leaned her head back and looked at the dark ceiling. "Are you sure my lasers won't help?"
"Reinforced steel," Jesse explained. "Are you saying that you'd rather die than stay in here with me?"
Lexa's eyebrows furrowed and she turned to see him smiling. Lexa grinned. "If that's what keeps you working on getting us out of here. Well, what do you think we should do?"
"Well, like I told Brennan: like when they tell you you're drunk, you lay down," Jesse quoted and shuffled farther to the left and then laid down, his head lying closer to Lexa.
Lexa looked down. "Oh, a true optimist."
"Always," he paused. "So, what's your history with Loki, anyway? I know you didn't just steal something with him."
Lexa sighed, as if it was an inconvenience, even though it wasn't. "It was a long time ago, Jess. Almost six years."
"We have time," Jesse said, motioning with his hands to emulate a big space.
Lexa looked around. "Remember when I told you I worked with the GSA?" she asked, when he nodded, she went on. "He was there."
"He's ex-GSA?" he exclaimed.
"He's not like that, Jess. We were both there to help our family, we were almost family."
"Was he your 'boyfriend'?" Jesse inquired with a spark of jealousy.
Lexa looked at him and smiled. "No," she answered. "Just friends, we both wanted to help our siblings. He wanted to help Andy and I wanted to help Leo. So we just spent a lot of time together."
"That's all, just time?" Jesse asked. "You guys look at each other like you were split apart at birth."
Lexa grinned. "Well, at Genomex, everyone takes care of themselves. It's hard to find a friend in a place like that. But we took care of each other. He's the one who told me that Leo escaped ... and he covered for me when I left." She took a moment for that to sink in. "Eckhart found that it's an offense if you help a fugitive, he risked his own life for me."
Jesse nodded. "He must love you a lot."
"Are you jealous?" she inquired, taking a closer look at him.
"I was," he said. "Until I realized that your relationship is kinda like Shal's and mine." He looked up at her and smiled, illuminating the famous "Kilmartin" dimples that Lexa liked so much.
"So you're not jealous?" she asked again.
Jesse shook his head. "It's not like I'm your boyfriend or anything."
Lexa nodded. "So ... is there any floor left for me?"
Jesse nodded and scooted closer to the wall and patted the floor next to him. "By all means."
Lexa laid down and they both stared at the ceiling. "Do you think we'll ever get to our date?"
"Well you know me, always the optimist," Jesse laughed, then he sighed. "I don't know."
"Well, what were you going to plan for our evening?" she asked as she rolled to the side closer to him and propped her head up with her hand.
Jesse made a humming sound. "Well, I guess I can tell you ... I was going to take you to a bar for some drinks."
"What bar?" Lexa asked.
"It's called 1209," he explained.
Lexa frowned. "Good to me, what then?"
"I don't figure you for a "French-type" restaurant, so I was going to take you to this Italian place for a late dinner since I don't see an early dinner with our schedule."
"Really?" she asked. "Italian food's good."
"I was hoping you'd say something like that," Jesse replied. "That was all I had planned out," he finished.
"And what would've happened after dinner?" Lexa asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Well, that was up to you," Jesse whispered.
"Huh," Lexa said as she frowned. "Too bad."
Jesse nodded, his lips in a line. "Yeah ..." His gorgeous blue orbs traveled to her face and they glinted with the light in the room. Leaning on his right hand, he raised his left hand and touched her cheek. Lexa pulled back a little.
"Jess ..." she moved a little farther, locking eyes with the man.
Jesse took his hand back and then lied back on the ground. "Yeah."
Lexa didn't even have to look at him, but looked at the floor. 'Damn your closed off heart' she mentally scolded herself. Then she was struck with the awkwardness that usually came after their arguments, but this time it was because he was being sweet to her. "It's not like I don't like you, Jesse," she said before she could stop herself.
Jesse, who had been staring at the ceiling, avoiding her gaze looked back up at her. "What?"
"Well why do you think I accepted your invitation?" she asked, wondering why he even had doubts. "Even for the drinks?"
Jesse blushed a little, that made Lexa smile. "Right."
"Just ... I like to take it slow," she said slowly, looking away.
"You didn't take it slow with everyone else," he took a final jab at her heart, that made her cringe. The second that it was out of his mouth, his stomach flipped. 'I had to do it, didn't I?' he scolded himself.
Lexa made a questioning gesture with her hand. "Well, wasn't very successful, now was it?" she returned.
Jesse made a small smile. "I guess not," he stated as he propped himself up again. "It's okay, I'll wait." Then he laid back on the floor and put his arm under his head and looked up at her. "Okay?"
Lexa answered with a firm nod. "Okay." No later had she said it, had the doors began to rise.
* * *
Under Shalimar's strong influence, did Loki board the strange looking plane. "Uh-hell no!" he had said, but Shalimar grabbed his shoulder and tossed him in there like a ragdoll. Andy followed Shalimar into it and Brennan chuckled. Loki sat down in one chair, but apparently it was the wrong one because Shalimar snapped her fingers to make him get up.
"What? Get a seating chart, will you!" He snapped as he sat next to his sister.
Andy couldn't contain her laughter. Loki turned back to her and made a face. "You're supposed to be on 'my' team!"
* * *
Jesse hopped to his feet and waited until Lexa was on hers before venturing out the evil reinforced steel door. But to their surprise, the halls were empty, ghost empty that their foosteps echoed lightly against the walls.
"I think I saw a Twilight Zone episode a little like this," mentioned Lexa.
"Just be careful," Jesse stated. "We still have to get to the main computer." They carefully turned to the left and walked down another, deathly quiet hallway. Jesse pointed to a door. "That's it."
Lexa held up a hand to stop Jesse from opening the door, taking a breath before she would open the door. Lexa's other hand went to the handle, she pushed it open and then she rubbed her hands together once, sending a blindingly bright light across the room. When the light disappeared, Jesse and Lexa looked in the room.
"It's empty," Jesse observed. Not only were the scientists missing, but so were the computers. The white linoleum floor was splotless and never endless in the large white room.
"Are you sure this is the room?" Lexa asked, taking a step inside.
Jesse nodded. "Yeah ... no wonder they shut it down, so they could get the computers away," looking up, wondering how he could be so stupid.
"Come on, we'll deal with this later. Let's get back to the Helix," Lexa instructed, turning around, moving past Jesse to the door.
* * *
Shalimar, Brennan, and the two gravitative mutants were in the Helix a good ten minutes before Lexa and Jesse decided to show up. "What took you so long?" Shalimar asked.
"Did you get the files?" Brennan further inquired.
"No," Lexa answered. "They locked down the building and took the computers away before we could get to them."
"What?" Shalimar exclaimed. "How could that happen?"
"Just like they told you, I'm guessing," Loki shrugged.
Shalimar pointed a finger in his face. "You, shut up."
Loki made a face. "You must be a blast to live with, kitty." He looked out of the window.
"How are you guys getting along?" Jesse asked, preparing to take off.
"We're not," Shalimar snapped back with a sidelong glance at Loki. "I'm about to make myself a new lava lamp."
"Ooh, you make me laugh," Loki said with a grin from ear to ear.
Shalimar's eyebrows furrowed as she looked at Lexa purely saying 'What is this guy on?'
"The truth is, you all need me to help you find these computers, and maybe on the person behind Project Gravity," Loki said, raising his eyebrows.
Lexa turned around in her chair and gave him a questioningly look. "How do you know that?"
"I love ya, Lex, you know that," he began. "But you didn't come here 'just' to rescue me."
"The fact is, it's not run by just one person. I heard someone say the silent partners. It's definently a group behind it," explained Loki looking from Shalimar to Lexa, who were both looking at them. "Not one person could have the money for all the research they had, especially when every test they took proved no results."
"You're blood didn't work?" Shalimar asked.
Loki shook his head. "I'm Chromatic, they tried to just pinpoint the DNA that gave me the Gravitative powers."
Lexa frowned. "You might be right."
"Might be? I'm never wrong on this kind of thing, Lex," he stated.
"Even if you're a criminal," Brennan added.
Loki pointed a finger at his back. "I know your profile, Brennan Mulwray, I know you used to have quite a rap sheet."
"Used to," Brennan hinted.
"Then we have something in common," Loki replied hotly.
Lexa knew that Brennan was pushing Loki to the edge, especially since Loki is emotionally unstable.
Brennan didn't buy it, but he didn't press the issue. "So, did you get anything else? Like where they would take the computers?"
"Nothing on that ... but on the silent partners, I know that they're planning on shutting down Project Gravity and firing the project head, Reese Douglas. That's why they broke me out of prison so fast after, I'm guessing, you got Andy," Loki explained.
Lexa nodded and then turned back. "We'll talk about this when we get to Sanctuary."
"You should see this place, Loki. Donald Trump would be after it," Andy changed the subject.
Loki raised his eyebrows and grinned. "Okay, what's Sparky doing there, then?" he antagonized.
Shalimar whirled around, her eyes flashed yellow. Loki held up his hands in surrender. "Lava lamp, got it."
* * *
* * *
Loki didn't really like leaving Lexa in that place, but he knew better than to underestimate the other Chromatic. Five-six years ago, Lexa could take anyone but Loki wasn't sure her mind was as clear as it was before. Especially with the way she looked at Jesse. 'Well it's about time', Loki mused. 'I have a better feeling about Jesse than I did Carter.'
"Loki," Andy had called him out of his reverie. "Loki, are you there?"
Loki blinked a few times before answering. "Yeah, what is it, Andy?" Snapping back into reality, he realized that they were moving outside while he was thinking. Shalimar and Brennan were about five feet ahead of them while Andy stayed back with Loki. They walked in damp green grass that Loki took comfort in while it made his bare feet wet.
"Are you okay? You kinda blanked out," she said, her worry consuming her.
Loki wrapped his bare arm around her and squeezed her tight. "Oh come on, Andy. The youngest carefree Burton worried?" he asked, as if reading her thoughts.
"Ha!" she sarcastically laughed. Andy was never carefree, out of the both of them, Andy was the most uptight. But since Loki was an petty thief and car booster, that wasn't saying much. "Right!"
Shalimar stopped and turned back. "Come on, you can have this conversation later," she urged.
Loki rolled his eyes and gently pushed Andy forward. Walking past Shalimar, he leaned closer to her. "Are you always this uptight or it's just because you don't want to lose such a gorgeous guy."
Shalimar smiled ever so poisonously. "Yeah, let me know when you see one," she said in a sexy voice.
Loki walked past and grimaced. "Ouch!" He clutched his chest in drama. Loki turned around and pointed to her. "I like 'you'."
* * *
Jesse took out his palm pilot to view the progress of the lock down. "It's still on, I don't know when they're going to open all the doors," he explained. His blue eyes traveled to the door where Lexa was standing, blasting the hell out of it with her lasers. Jesse pocketed the palm pilot and stood up, he walked in front of her between blasts.
Lexa put her hands on her hips and raised her eyebrows. "If you don't have any other ideas, Jesse. Then get out of my way."
Jesse closely inspected Lexa, her wavy brown hair was dampened because she had worn herself out using her powers over and over again. Jesse put his hands on her shoulders. "Well, working yourself past exhaustion isn't going to open the door, Lexa." He gently pushed her farther away from the door to the wall. "Here, sit down."
Lexa was too tired to argue with him, and she didn't want to have extra tension between her and Jesse if they were going to be staying in this room for quite some time. She let him back her up into the wall and she slid down into a sitting position. Jesse stepped to the left of her and sat down too. "So, what's your guess on how long we'll be here?" she inquired.
Jesse groaned and let his legs spread out. "Mmm, I have no idea. An hour, maybe two. It isn't easy to lock down a building and then open it up again."
Lexa groaned and leaned her head back and looked at the dark ceiling. "Are you sure my lasers won't help?"
"Reinforced steel," Jesse explained. "Are you saying that you'd rather die than stay in here with me?"
Lexa's eyebrows furrowed and she turned to see him smiling. Lexa grinned. "If that's what keeps you working on getting us out of here. Well, what do you think we should do?"
"Well, like I told Brennan: like when they tell you you're drunk, you lay down," Jesse quoted and shuffled farther to the left and then laid down, his head lying closer to Lexa.
Lexa looked down. "Oh, a true optimist."
"Always," he paused. "So, what's your history with Loki, anyway? I know you didn't just steal something with him."
Lexa sighed, as if it was an inconvenience, even though it wasn't. "It was a long time ago, Jess. Almost six years."
"We have time," Jesse said, motioning with his hands to emulate a big space.
Lexa looked around. "Remember when I told you I worked with the GSA?" she asked, when he nodded, she went on. "He was there."
"He's ex-GSA?" he exclaimed.
"He's not like that, Jess. We were both there to help our family, we were almost family."
"Was he your 'boyfriend'?" Jesse inquired with a spark of jealousy.
Lexa looked at him and smiled. "No," she answered. "Just friends, we both wanted to help our siblings. He wanted to help Andy and I wanted to help Leo. So we just spent a lot of time together."
"That's all, just time?" Jesse asked. "You guys look at each other like you were split apart at birth."
Lexa grinned. "Well, at Genomex, everyone takes care of themselves. It's hard to find a friend in a place like that. But we took care of each other. He's the one who told me that Leo escaped ... and he covered for me when I left." She took a moment for that to sink in. "Eckhart found that it's an offense if you help a fugitive, he risked his own life for me."
Jesse nodded. "He must love you a lot."
"Are you jealous?" she inquired, taking a closer look at him.
"I was," he said. "Until I realized that your relationship is kinda like Shal's and mine." He looked up at her and smiled, illuminating the famous "Kilmartin" dimples that Lexa liked so much.
"So you're not jealous?" she asked again.
Jesse shook his head. "It's not like I'm your boyfriend or anything."
Lexa nodded. "So ... is there any floor left for me?"
Jesse nodded and scooted closer to the wall and patted the floor next to him. "By all means."
Lexa laid down and they both stared at the ceiling. "Do you think we'll ever get to our date?"
"Well you know me, always the optimist," Jesse laughed, then he sighed. "I don't know."
"Well, what were you going to plan for our evening?" she asked as she rolled to the side closer to him and propped her head up with her hand.
Jesse made a humming sound. "Well, I guess I can tell you ... I was going to take you to a bar for some drinks."
"What bar?" Lexa asked.
"It's called 1209," he explained.
Lexa frowned. "Good to me, what then?"
"I don't figure you for a "French-type" restaurant, so I was going to take you to this Italian place for a late dinner since I don't see an early dinner with our schedule."
"Really?" she asked. "Italian food's good."
"I was hoping you'd say something like that," Jesse replied. "That was all I had planned out," he finished.
"And what would've happened after dinner?" Lexa asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Well, that was up to you," Jesse whispered.
"Huh," Lexa said as she frowned. "Too bad."
Jesse nodded, his lips in a line. "Yeah ..." His gorgeous blue orbs traveled to her face and they glinted with the light in the room. Leaning on his right hand, he raised his left hand and touched her cheek. Lexa pulled back a little.
"Jess ..." she moved a little farther, locking eyes with the man.
Jesse took his hand back and then lied back on the ground. "Yeah."
Lexa didn't even have to look at him, but looked at the floor. 'Damn your closed off heart' she mentally scolded herself. Then she was struck with the awkwardness that usually came after their arguments, but this time it was because he was being sweet to her. "It's not like I don't like you, Jesse," she said before she could stop herself.
Jesse, who had been staring at the ceiling, avoiding her gaze looked back up at her. "What?"
"Well why do you think I accepted your invitation?" she asked, wondering why he even had doubts. "Even for the drinks?"
Jesse blushed a little, that made Lexa smile. "Right."
"Just ... I like to take it slow," she said slowly, looking away.
"You didn't take it slow with everyone else," he took a final jab at her heart, that made her cringe. The second that it was out of his mouth, his stomach flipped. 'I had to do it, didn't I?' he scolded himself.
Lexa made a questioning gesture with her hand. "Well, wasn't very successful, now was it?" she returned.
Jesse made a small smile. "I guess not," he stated as he propped himself up again. "It's okay, I'll wait." Then he laid back on the floor and put his arm under his head and looked up at her. "Okay?"
Lexa answered with a firm nod. "Okay." No later had she said it, had the doors began to rise.
* * *
Under Shalimar's strong influence, did Loki board the strange looking plane. "Uh-hell no!" he had said, but Shalimar grabbed his shoulder and tossed him in there like a ragdoll. Andy followed Shalimar into it and Brennan chuckled. Loki sat down in one chair, but apparently it was the wrong one because Shalimar snapped her fingers to make him get up.
"What? Get a seating chart, will you!" He snapped as he sat next to his sister.
Andy couldn't contain her laughter. Loki turned back to her and made a face. "You're supposed to be on 'my' team!"
* * *
Jesse hopped to his feet and waited until Lexa was on hers before venturing out the evil reinforced steel door. But to their surprise, the halls were empty, ghost empty that their foosteps echoed lightly against the walls.
"I think I saw a Twilight Zone episode a little like this," mentioned Lexa.
"Just be careful," Jesse stated. "We still have to get to the main computer." They carefully turned to the left and walked down another, deathly quiet hallway. Jesse pointed to a door. "That's it."
Lexa held up a hand to stop Jesse from opening the door, taking a breath before she would open the door. Lexa's other hand went to the handle, she pushed it open and then she rubbed her hands together once, sending a blindingly bright light across the room. When the light disappeared, Jesse and Lexa looked in the room.
"It's empty," Jesse observed. Not only were the scientists missing, but so were the computers. The white linoleum floor was splotless and never endless in the large white room.
"Are you sure this is the room?" Lexa asked, taking a step inside.
Jesse nodded. "Yeah ... no wonder they shut it down, so they could get the computers away," looking up, wondering how he could be so stupid.
"Come on, we'll deal with this later. Let's get back to the Helix," Lexa instructed, turning around, moving past Jesse to the door.
* * *
Shalimar, Brennan, and the two gravitative mutants were in the Helix a good ten minutes before Lexa and Jesse decided to show up. "What took you so long?" Shalimar asked.
"Did you get the files?" Brennan further inquired.
"No," Lexa answered. "They locked down the building and took the computers away before we could get to them."
"What?" Shalimar exclaimed. "How could that happen?"
"Just like they told you, I'm guessing," Loki shrugged.
Shalimar pointed a finger in his face. "You, shut up."
Loki made a face. "You must be a blast to live with, kitty." He looked out of the window.
"How are you guys getting along?" Jesse asked, preparing to take off.
"We're not," Shalimar snapped back with a sidelong glance at Loki. "I'm about to make myself a new lava lamp."
"Ooh, you make me laugh," Loki said with a grin from ear to ear.
Shalimar's eyebrows furrowed as she looked at Lexa purely saying 'What is this guy on?'
"The truth is, you all need me to help you find these computers, and maybe on the person behind Project Gravity," Loki said, raising his eyebrows.
Lexa turned around in her chair and gave him a questioningly look. "How do you know that?"
"I love ya, Lex, you know that," he began. "But you didn't come here 'just' to rescue me."
"The fact is, it's not run by just one person. I heard someone say the silent partners. It's definently a group behind it," explained Loki looking from Shalimar to Lexa, who were both looking at them. "Not one person could have the money for all the research they had, especially when every test they took proved no results."
"You're blood didn't work?" Shalimar asked.
Loki shook his head. "I'm Chromatic, they tried to just pinpoint the DNA that gave me the Gravitative powers."
Lexa frowned. "You might be right."
"Might be? I'm never wrong on this kind of thing, Lex," he stated.
"Even if you're a criminal," Brennan added.
Loki pointed a finger at his back. "I know your profile, Brennan Mulwray, I know you used to have quite a rap sheet."
"Used to," Brennan hinted.
"Then we have something in common," Loki replied hotly.
Lexa knew that Brennan was pushing Loki to the edge, especially since Loki is emotionally unstable.
Brennan didn't buy it, but he didn't press the issue. "So, did you get anything else? Like where they would take the computers?"
"Nothing on that ... but on the silent partners, I know that they're planning on shutting down Project Gravity and firing the project head, Reese Douglas. That's why they broke me out of prison so fast after, I'm guessing, you got Andy," Loki explained.
Lexa nodded and then turned back. "We'll talk about this when we get to Sanctuary."
"You should see this place, Loki. Donald Trump would be after it," Andy changed the subject.
Loki raised his eyebrows and grinned. "Okay, what's Sparky doing there, then?" he antagonized.
Shalimar whirled around, her eyes flashed yellow. Loki held up his hands in surrender. "Lava lamp, got it."
* * *