Agent-G: o my, I did not really have to hear that bit of 'dark' and 'most violent'. And about what they are doing, I'm wrapping this story up, because I have the entire first chapter of the next story in the Underground series typed out in my head.

Vacation - Ways not to wake Michael

It had been a while after the arguement with Marianne's father, but it surprised Michael a bit that Marianne actually took it rather well. Then again, she hadn't seen him since before her coma, he hadn't really been 'in the picture' for a long time. They had been driving for two hours straight now, but they would stop for the night and then head to the Institute to see the X-Men. After that, they would head home.

At current, they were in a motel room, Marianne had simply refused to spend the night in the van.

"They did what?!" Michael heard Marianne call out from the bedroom. She was calling the safehouse.

"I can't believe it. The entire training room?! Exploded as in 'boom' or exploded as in overloaded? Aha, no, boom. Allright. Was anyone hurt? No, aside from them, o, that's good," she lowered the phone to talk to Michael, "Luka says Tank and Sarah had a go at the Training room, it went boom on them, a bit."

"How much is a bit?" Michael replied, while digging through his suitcase, trying to find some clean clothes.

"Ben has to make a whole new set of drones, a few of the programs were lost and there are a few new cracks in the entire South wall of the house."

Michael groaned, that had been a very big 'boom', as Marianne put it. The entire house was reinforced to withstand a whole lot of abuse.

"Any new refugees? Just two? Yes, I know two are still too much, but compared to a couple of months ago... No, we're not at Devon's now. My father was there, he didn't take my engagement to Michael that well," a giggle at something Luka said on the other side, "yes, I guess that's where I got my stubborn side from. I pretty much told him to shove it. In more pleasant words. I think I said, that we would talk again when he decided to be rational."

Marianne lay on her stomache across the bed, phone in one hand while sketching something with her free hand, Michael heard her giggle about something Luka said, later quip back at the other doctor on something. She looked carefree and just like any woman her age should be, no worries about people needing her help, no worries about losing people she loved and not the darkness in her eyes caused by grief over her actions. Although that darkness had lightened ever since this trip had started, it was almost gone now.

"Bye Luka, take care of the rest and tell them I miss 'm and love 'm," Marianne finally winded the conversation down, when she hung up, she turned onto her back and studied the ceiling with a slight frown on her face.

"Something wrong?" Michael asked her, seeing the frown.

"I'm going to ask professor Xavier if he can temporarily host Connor, Ezra, Samantha and Jonathan again. Just untill everything settles down again in Underground. And have them spend some time with more kids of their age. I heard Xavier is putting together a whole school for mutant kids, it would be good for them," she raised her head to look at Michael, but ended up twisting her head in such an odd angle that it would be better to just sit up straight. Ofcourse that wouldn't do either, so she ended up crawling into Michael's lap.

"We'll be fine, right, Michael?" Marianne asked him after a while.

"What do you mean? Why wouldn't we be fine?"

"With getting married and all, when we're old and grey. the future. Will we keep leading the safehouse? Or will we do something else later?" Marianne asked, not asking one question, but they both knew it was still there: would they survive to be old and grey?

"I'd be lying if I said we wouldn't have a couple of rough spots, but we've had them before, and we've dealt with them. And being married, I don't see much change, the only thing that will change will be that we will be officially together," he wrapped his arms around her waist.

They sat like that for a while, just enjoying eachother's company, being close, but as the sky darkened, they grew tired and turned in for the night.

- = Next day = -

"Up up up!" Marianne all but dragged Michael out of bed, and according too him, far too early. His half muttered, sleepy threats towards her to leave him alone turned into loud curses as she threw him into a bath and turned on the water.

"What was that for?!" he finally managed to get out, after escaping the unwanted shower.

"I told you an hour ago that I wanted to go and have a look around. You said, and I quote 'in a minute, go have breakfast'. I went to have breakfast and you were fast asleep when I got back, fifteen minutes ago. I told you then that if you didn't get up withing fifteen minutes, I would throw you into the bath and turn the water on, and when I checked back just now, you were still asleep," Marianne grinned, but meanwhile back slowly away as she noticed the mad glint in his eyes that only could be defined as 'I'm gonna get even with you now'.

"You're gonna get it now," Michael warned, an evil grin forming on his face, causing Marianne to 'eep' and make a mad dash to the door and run outside, followed closely by Michael.

It didn't take long for Michael to tackle her, but had already forgiven her his awakening, their resulted tumble to the ground only led to a loud laughing ringing across the morning land. Possibly waking the other guests of the motel.

"Uhm, Michael, you do realise you're only wearing a soaked sweat pants?" Marianne asked him after a moment, bearly withholding her laughter.

"I thought it was a bit cold, stay right there," Michael turned slightly red, before running back inside, leaving Marianne laughing uncontrolably, before scrambling to her feet and following Michael inside.

"I called Desiree too," she said, plopping down onto the bed, "and Sidney, he says we should get back to the safehouse as soon as we can. The plans are speeding up and he'd prefer to have us in place when things start happening."

Michael nodded, pulling on the T-Shirt: "Do we still have time to drop by professor Xavier and the others?"

"Yeah, we have to anyway, I have to tell the professor and the others in charge of the Institute what to do when it starts happening. It's not just Mutant Underground that will be destroyed if we fail," Marianne told him.

They had started finding 'oddities' about two weeks before Michael and Marianne had left for their vacation. When they called Sidney, who was one of the founders of Mutant Underground, and Desiree, who was in charge of the part of Underground that was in South America and put the pieces together, they could only come to one conclusion: treachery, at least, that was what everything pointed to, but all the evidence was vague at best. It was frustrating, Sidney had tried to get the other founders to believe them, but they didn't, contributing it to that Michael and Marianne wore suffering from stress caused by what they had faced. This forced them to operate even more secretive, because if the founders discovered what they were doing, they would be put on inactive duty, permanently. No one of the 'conspirators' wanted this.

They couldn't go full out against the traitors either, because they only had a few labeled, and not one of the leaders. It was a frustrating situation, but during their vacation, Michael and Marianne had forced their thoughts away from the issue. But now the end of their vacation was drawing near, their thoughts were drawn back to what they were trying to save.

The plan they had was simple, to save as many as they could, no one had the illusion everyone would come out of this one alive. They could only try.

"I know, Anne, will the professor agree to do what we will ask of him?" Michael pulled the suitcases together to carry to the van.

"Yes, he will, and probably more then just evacuate to the houses Sidney put up," Marianne said, her confidence in her friends showing in her face and she took her own suitcases. She hated it when people tried to do things for her that she could very well do herself.

Michael grinned at that. It was one of the things he loved about her. People were easily fooled by her appearance as that of a gentle mannered doctor, but she was far from helpless. He left her fummbling with her stuff as he made his way to the van, there was no way he would endanger his sleepingspot next to her if he helped her out.

"Whatcha grinning at?" Marianne asked him, slightly out of breath after winning her battle with the suitcases that hadn't been so intend on getting into the van.

"Me?" Michael tried to look inocent, "I'm just a happy person!"

"Yes, and I'm really a super-model," she quipped, while closing the door, "Well? What are you waiting for? Step on it!"