Aftermath

It was deadly quiet in the parking lot. The festering body of Alex Treamayne had slumped to the ground in a heap, the last echoes of his screams still resounding in the air. The storm that hit only the hospital's block was now a faint drizzle. Lux, with Rev and Donna by her side, still clutched Adam's hand as he struggled to stand on his own and failed. The three women radiated power and seemed unfazed by the battle just won. Still glowing a dazzling white light, they turned and parted, each one a beacon of energy facing the stunned forces of New Order and blocking any attack with a glowing shield. The Alliance, banded together around them in a protective circle, now stepped behind the three telekinetics. The enemy had lost a soldier, other renegades were either stunned or injured. As they gathered their mates to leave the battle ground, Nickolas Lareou turned to Lux Windsor, hatred dripping from his eyes and his voice resonating with his power, sound waves hitting the wall created by the three psionics. "This isn't over."

"Not by a long shot."

With the New Order's departure, the white light dimmed, as the black clouds parted, admiting again sunlight over the parking lot. The Alliance's forces were not unscathed, with Brennan and Adam showing signs of exhaustion, Cat stunned, blood dripping from her ears. Cuts and bruises abounded in various stages of severity. Jim Ellison sported a deep gash over his left eye and Cory Buchanan's leg was twisted in an unatural position as his bad knee had failed him in the heat of the fight against Ntobo. As Makenna Coniglario ran from one person to the other, and those in better shape helped more gravely wounded friends get into the hospital, the doors burst open. Mac and Jesse left the building, relief clearly illuminating their faces. Opening their hands, they let go of a dozen handheld computers, letting them clatter on the steps, cracking small screens and exposing their circuits, no longer capable of detonating the charges they had been attached to.

With his arm around Shalimar's shoulders and her hand around his waist, helping his stand, Adam looked at his old friend MacGyver and his young protegée Jesse Kilmartin. Thanks to them, the clinic was intact and the New Order's plans, for now, thwarted. He reached for Mac's hand and smiled at Jesse. "Thank you, both of you."

"What happened here? World War III?" asked MacGyver, as he overlooked the battle field.

"Close enough," answered Zack Coniglario, his fangs still visible, his forked tongue darting between his lips.

"Lets get everybody inside!" ordered Makenna. "Angela and I can take care of the injured."

"Where is she?" asked Donna Gryphon.

"Last I saw, she dove from that building over there directly into Tremayne," answered Emma DeLauro, hands holding her hurting head where a rock had hit.

Jax McManus's nostrils were flaring, trying to locate the bird feral's scent among the different smells that crowded the place. "She's around, but I can't locate her."

"Wait." Leaning on Mac and Jesse, Adam placed his thumb and forefinger in his mouth and released a long and high pitched whistle, a call he knew his bird-of-prey would only leave unanswered in death.

&&&

The piercing sound tore at her ears, a needle in her brain, in her heart. As with the protective instinct that made her attack whoever threatened her falconer, his call could not go unheeded. The half of her that was bird went crazy trying to acknowledge the call. The half of her that was human only wanted to curl up, cover her eyes with the heals of her hands and scream, but whimpers came out of her throat. She felt blood, hot and sticky, rolling down her cheeks like tears. The piercing whistle sounded again, again her falconer called and this time there was no choice but to answer him. Where was it coming from? There was no light, the world had turned into a black pit with no way out.

Forcing one hand away from her face, she probed the broken concrete walls of the crater opened by the New Order's terraformer's power. Forcing her other hand away from her bloody face, she felt her way, breaking her talons on the rocks as she hauled up her body. She could feel the sun warming her hands and face, but there was no light, nothing but darkness and pain around her. She could hear now a woman screaming... Gasps and voices filled her ears as she tried to stand, but the ground was unstable, rocks or pieces of broken pavement rolled under her feet and she fell on her hands and knees, her head bent. Someone grabbed her by the shoulders above her folded wings and turned her, strong arms craddling her and pulling her to an inviting chest. "Hawkgirl..." she heard a whisper... and something hit her, a mindblast, plunging her into another kind of darkness, warm and tender, as her body relaxed in the lioness's lap, her head falling backwards, exposing for all to see the empty sockets where her eyes had once been.

Wounds of the Flesh, Wounds of the Heart

 "There's nothing there!"

Lux Windsor looked around in desperation, pouring white light from her whole body. Her hands covered Angela's eyes and part of her face, white light also shining under them. The psionic was starting to hyperventilate, the effort of healing now showing in the dark circles under her eyes, the palor of her skin and the beads of sweat sprouting from her brow. "I've healed everything else, inside as well as outside, all the burns, even the scarring, but there's nothing there! I can't grow her new eyes!" Lux was panting, the exertion of healing robbing her of what little control of her emotions she still had. Tears sprung from her eyes and rolled down. So many times she performed the impossible, she snatched preys from death's own clutches, but she had limits. She could only reconstitute, rebuild, she couldn't create anew what had been so completely lost. The unconscious bird woman didn't deserve that, not this kind of fate.

"Come, lass, you can do no more." Jax McManus held her boss's hands in hers and gently pried them from the bird feral's face. She had carried the wounded woman inside in her arms, her weight a pittance due to the hollow bones that helped her fly, her silky feathers brushing against Jax's cheek and neck.

Adam took Lux's place by Angela's side. From a tray by the bed, he took gauze and delicately started bandaging his bird-of-prey's eyes. His own eyes stung and he furiously bit his upper lip, a gesture he had noticed Angela mirrored. Again, he berated himself. For that had he brought her from her country? He didn't even notice it, but his hands were shaking. "Let me," he heard a woman speak, and a smaller hand covered his.

"Thanks, Makenna, but I have to do it myself," he answered.

"Your hands are shaking."

"Are they? Check again." Adam breathed in deep, closed his eyes for a split second and looked at his hands, now absolutely steady.

Makenna Coniglario looked at the older man, shook her head and withdrew. There were wounds aplenty to tend to, as well as Lux's exhaustion to demand her attention.

Adam finished up bandaging Angela's eyes, circling her head with gauze in a white blindfold and, with a light caress on her face, started putting the tools down. After covering the tray with a clean towel, he stopped, pinched the bridge of his nose and massaged his temples. Suddenly, he felt old and worn out. The life of a guerilla fighter demanded more than he had to give, more than he was willing to pay in blood and suffering.

As he turned to help Makenna with the other injuries, he passed Donna Gryphon, crying softly, her head against Blair's chest. She held his arm, halting his way, and stood up, looking at him. Without another word, he followed her to a secluded corner of the room. After a long pause, Donna sighed. "I'm scared, Adam."

Leaving the tray on a nightstand, he lifted her chin. "Tell me."

"That was it," she said. "That was what my precog power was warning me about."

"Are you sure?" he asked.

"Yes, I am," was the answer. "I was with her every time I had a hit. Every single time I was touching Angela. Or thinking about her." Donna Gryphon sighed again and crossed her arms tightly. "And I know who she is," the psionic whispered.

Adam raised an eyebrow. "How...? She didn't... Ah..." and it downed on him. "The bond you share."

"Yes," confirmed Donna. "The Foundation incident... After that horrible night, when Emma called... I went into a trance state and entered Angela's mind. I was there the whole night, while that toad... thing... raped her..." she couldn't go on, her own emotions, all she had lived and suffered herself overflowed and the words choked her.

Adam closed his eyes and pulled Donna into his arms, holding her and rocking lightly back and forth until the tears subsided. He was deeply moved. This woman was amazing, a true hero. She had willingly relived the most horrifying event of her life in order to hold Angela's sanity intact in her moment of need.

"Since that night," she went on, "a little bit of me is always with her. And a little bit of her is always with me. I know everything about her, even what she managed to keep hidden while that bastard Thorne hit her sub-gov again and again, even risking brain damage."

Adam nodded and his eyes wandered around the room, resting on Angela's unconscious form agan. He couldn't look at Donna, not now. From the moment he found out about the corruption of his life's work, guilt had been his best friend, his constant companion. Now, a fresh batch was added to his already staggering load. His eyes fell on Emma and she immediately lifted her head from her hands, looking straight at him. He knew his emotions were so overwhelming she felt them clearly through the maelstrom washing the hospital room. Yet, he kept a tight leash on himself, as usual. Done was done. If Donna knew Angela was his niece, daughter of his older sister, dead three years before, then so be it. He couldn't acknowledge her to the rest of the world, lest she become both a target for his enemies and a weapon against him, but it actually felt good to have someone other than himself and Angela in on it.

"And I know another thing, Adam," Donna went further on. "With flight and the freedom I now know it brings, Angela could withstand anything." Donna stopped, letting the greater tragedy sink in their hearts. "She's never had a lot, she had already lost so much. Now even that was taken from her. That's what scares me the most."

Adam nodded again and, this time, looked Donna strainght in the eye, and she returned his gaze. "It scares me too, GryphonLady. It scares me too."