Just saw Blade; Trinity. WOW, those action-scenes are fookin' AWESOME, and that Van Wilder-dude got some of the funniest dialogues on movie-history. But the villain sucked….

Dowriter12: Thanks

Laura-trekkie: You will get Frank's reaction sooner or later

The Writing Bee: He won't be pleased, I can tell you that! :)

Gypsy: Thanks. I cooked all that up while I was writing, but I'm very pleased at how it turned out.

Slickboy444: Just looked over your profile again…. Who's your muse, where did you get it, and are there any more? MAN you've got a lot of stories. A lot of very LONG and GOOD stories. How do you do it, man? I have trouble continuing the three stories I'm writing now, and this here is the longest of them. You really have my respect, and I'll get around to reviewing your stories once I get them read.

P.S Linkin Park do indeed ROCK ;)

101: Ahhh, actually I have. The AN in the prologue is kinda out-dated. Sorry ;

- - - -

Consciousness kissed Frank like a brick to the face, bloodshot eyes cracking open to the cold warmth of fluorescent lightning and nausea. He was back in the infirmary. After swiftly checking himself for injuries, he tentatively got out of the bed. It felt like he had been turned inside-out three times over. Not a very pleasant sensation.

"So, how are you feeling Mr. Castle?" A voice boomed from behind him, startling him bad enough so that he had to suppress the initial neck-snapping reflexes. He turned around and looked at a smiling Hank McCoy.

"Like hammered shit"

Silence followed as Hank wandered around checking the various beeping screens attached to his patient, letting him know of the slightest dissonance in his patients' health. Correcting his thin-rimmed glasses with his meaty fist, his pen danced frantically over the obligatory clipboard, held in his left foot. Like some contemporary sculpture he stood on one leg, perfectly balanced, in his lab coat, analyzing eyes bouncing from the screens to the clipboard.

Frank would have had trouble trusting such a monkey-doctor if he didn't look so damn good at it.

"You gave her quite a scare you know"

"What?" Frank rumbled "I was the one who got electrocuted"

"Excuse me?" Hank said bewildered.

"Yeah, when I grabbed her throat. It felt like she fried me"

Hank just looked at him with a withering glare

"I can assure you, you were the one who got the easy end of the bargain"

Frank narrowed his eyes "What?"

"Her powers are not those of electricity, but of absorption. She absorbed your thoughts and memories"

The only sound that could be heard in the sterile room was the steady humming of the trusty machined faithfully doing their job. The only sound that could be heard for a long while…

"My…memories?" A strange grimace swept over his face for less than a second before reverting back to the normal stoniness.

Hank averted his gaze to the floor, and spoke quietly, almost as if embarrassed. "Yes. I'm afraid they haven't been kind to her. When we found you she was screaming and sobbing uncontrollably.

She hasn't spoken to anyone yet, so I'm afraid she has been rather traumatized"

Frank couldn't bring himself to respond. The prospect of another being seeing his memories affected him more than he liked to admit. He felt anger. His memories were the only thing sacred to him. It was the only ray of light in the inky blackness of his mind, the single strained string of sanity keeping him focused. The thought of someone...stealing…his memories; raping everything he held dear infuriated him.

At the same time, he felt pity. There was a reason that he preferred not to tell people of his pain. Because it was pain. His memories were nothing but pain. His pain. His own, no one else's'. Nobody deserved that kind of pain, not even himself. But wallowing in self-pity had never been his strongest trait. Even before the tragedy, he had been a man of firm decisiveness and resolve, always thinking ahead instead of behind.

Some time after his war had begun, the dark silhouette of self-doubt began seeping in though invisible cracks in his skull. Am I doing the right thing? Am I betted than them? Worse?

At first it was just a hairline mist behind his eyes, but in time the fog grew denser, until it almost blinded him. He was left open to exploitation, and exploited he were.

But to cut it short, after the witnessing life seep from thousand of bodies such doubts seemed rather pointless. Any hopes of redemption had long since fled in the panorama of such extensive bloodshed. He kept it bottled up, and in the words of one of his former biggest enemies; 'bottles like his don't break.'

How right he was…

- - - -

Cherry, strawberry or raspberry?

Flipping through her arsenal of bubblegum, Jubilee had come up with three finalists.

It's strange how some people use different things to find some personal Elysium when the rest of world gets too intense for comfort. Some work out, some have sex, some use those wanky anti-stress balls, and some go crazy. And Jubilee used bubblegum. The soft sensation of flavoured synthetic candy being squashed between her teeth seemed to relax her immeasurably.

After some moments of deep philosophy, she popped two pieces of cherry-flavoured sticks into her mouth and turned to leave, the gum already working its magic.

Her course was clear; the infirmary. She just wanted to make sure he was alright. Rumours were spreading all over the mansion like a bad case of influenza, and even though some of the gossips were obviously painfully false, (Jubilee seriously doubted Frank had tried to steal Rogues thongs)

and no information had been confirmed; she had a very good idea of what happened.

She tried to put a bounce in her step, but she had to admit that it quickly became too painful. She winced inwardly. The marks left upon her by the sacrilege still hadn't faded completely. She could feel a lump in her throat growing rapidly, but she forcibly swallowed and sniffled loudly, burrowing the feelings inside her chest. It would be all right she assured herself. When the wounds disappeared, everything will be alright…

She met Hank in the hallway, his muscular form still wrapped in a tight-fitting lab-coat. Shadows encircled the sober look on his face, a pointed difference between the usual warm smile that graced his features. However, it retuned instantaneously when he laid eyes on Jubilee.

"Ah Jubilee, how are you feeling" His soft baritone rumbled.

"Ok, I guess" She smiled back, though her smile was a little bit forced, something that didn't escape Hanks attention. A blue eyebrow was raised sceptically.

"Are you sure?" He asked inquisitively

"Yeah" she whispered, this time more genuinely. "How is he?"

Hank immediately knew who she was talking about. His face reverted back to the grimace he had worn before he saw Jubilee. Although he was not as judgemental as certain other residents here, he certainly couldn't applaud this one-sided friendship. He feared that Frank's darkness should somehow affect her, maybe even hurt her.

Then Hank scolded himself. He knew that Frank would never hurt the young woman intentionally. Not even if hell froze over.

Still, there's a thousand ways to hurt somebody unintentionally. When you lived in a place where suppressed fear, anger, uncertainty and love hung so densely in the air that the smell burned your nostrils, you leaned such things.

"He's sour" Was the only answer.

- - - -

Opening the infirmary door without knocking proved to be quite a mistake. By some warped twist of fate, she managed to look inside the very moment Frank discarded the paper-like sheet, also known as a hospital gown, which covered his body. Wearing absolutely nothing underneath. Fortunately for her, he stood with his back to her. She felt her face grow warm and dry, embarrassment coursing merrily through her veins. But just as she was about to turn away something caught her eyes. She had long since grown used to perfectly sculptured male bodies, seeing as how every denizen here, even herself, followed a rigid exercise-program, keeping them in peerless shape. However, never before had Jubilee laid eyes on a being as scarred as Frank. She sharp lights cast an eerie shadow over his body, outlining every little scar, even those that would be impossible to spot otherwise. Long-since healed slashes, bullet-holes, burn marks and covered his backside, telling a terrifying story of struggle and bloodshed. She couldn't even begin to imagine how a person, especially a non-mutant, could get so many scars and still breathe. There looked to be enough to kill a human ten times over.

She was snapped out of her stupor as he slipped a white t-shirt over his scars, and Jubilee could feel panic beginning to freeze her insides. How long had she stood looking at him? He was fully dressed now. Either he was an exceptionally quick dresser, or she had stood an ogled at him for far too long. She was just about to flee the scene when a familiar harsh voice disrupted her escape.

"Did you want something?"

Jubilee felt a bucket of ice-water being poured over her. He knew? Her tongue suddenly swelled up, making it nearly impossible to form any rational sentences.

"S-sorry, I-I just…"

"Go on"

"I wanted to... I… are-are you alright?" She finally managed.

"You should be more concerned about yourself, y'know?"

Jubilee was completely taken aback at that reply

"What? I-I was just being nice…" She began, but Frank interrupted her before she could begin any kind of ranting.

"Are you alright, Jubilee?" Frank asked in spite of himself.

He could still see the faded cuts and bruises on her pretty face, like a memento of the brutality of the outside world. Frank also became aware of her expression twitching with pain after each carefully measured step, and immediately wished he hadn't. Before he managed to close that mental doorway, he saw the blood seeping out from between her thin, black-and-blue legs like a small creek of liquid pain, testimony to the amount of hurt evil beings could cause others. If the blood was from the cuts, a once-virginity or both no one could tell. No one but her.

"I…I…" The words clumped together in the back of her mouth, refusing to let her lie in his presence. All she mustered was a wobbly "No"

She felt like crying. Of all the people she wanted to be strong for, she felt her saviour deserved to see her in good spirits, not weeping like a weakling over past things unchangeable. Her failure to do so burned like acid in the back of her oral cavity.

Unexpectedly, a thick arm found its way over her slim shoulders, offering her to release the mounting emotions into the owner's chest. And so she did.

For the first time since he died, Frank Castle held a crying girl in his arms, making use of a fatherly skill long forgotten. Comfort…

- - - -

Gah! How sappy! goes vomiting

Alright people, hands up; should there be more action in the next chapter. Yes or no. I'm voting yes…