Chapter 3
by AliasJaneDoe
"No." His voice sounded broken... upset, frustrated. Not at her, though - Brennan wasn't angry with her, but at himself.
She felt his emotions, rather than heard it in his voice from that one word. She wondered if the no was about her coming in... or him being okay.
Emma entered his room anyway. He was collapsed on the floor beside his bed. Of course, she sighed to herself. They should have known he would attempt getting up. She rushed to his side and eased down beside him.
"Brennan..." She felt like she had to say something, didn't know what. But he couldn't see her; his world relied on his other senses now. She had to say something. She rested her hand lightly on his shoulder. He still had touch also. "Brennan..."
"I tried to get up." He let out bitter, raw laugh. "I haven't walked in four months, and I decided, hey, I'm going for a little stroll."
His tone was more pained than sarcastic. His laughter turned into sobbing, and Emma pulled him to her. Blood from where he'd ripped the IV from his hand stained her shirt. "It's okay. Shh, you're okay."
After a minute, he tried to shrug away from her touch.
"Brennan, don't." He was trying to shove her away from his thoughts, from what he was feeling.
"I'm a mess right now. You shouldn't have to go through that." He kept his face tilted down.
Emma wanted to demand that he look at her. Then she wanted to cry. Her fingers moved to his face, and she gently cupped his cheek in her palm. "My knight in shining armor," she whispered gently.
"What--" He paused, needing to take several deep breaths and steady himself. "What happened to Eckhart?"
Emma wondered if that had been his original question. "I don't know."
"What's our plan?" he asked slowly.
She studied him carefully. "What do you mean?"
"We're going to kill him, right? For what he did." For Shalimar.
She softly stroked the side of his face with the backs of her fingers, removing his tears. "We need to focus on us first."
"What us?" he demanded, the anger returning to his wavering voice. "You, me, and Jess? Because Mutant X is dead. Shalimar is never coming back. And I don't think I want Adam to."
"Adam..."
"Doesn't deserve defending," Brennan stated firmly, then sighed. "I dunno, maybe if I could look him in the eye, I could forgive him, but..."
He left the sentence hanging. Emma didn't force him to finish it.
"Are you two alright?" Jesse's voice asked from the doorway.
Brennan automatically looked up, then his fingers clutched the material of Emma's clothing a bit tighter. He hadn't heard footsteps to signal Jesse's arrival. So much for his other senses heightening to make up for the one he lost.
"I think we're okay," Emma replied. "Give us a few minutes, will you?"
Jesse nodded. "I'll be in my room... if you need me."
"Thanks, Jess," she said softly before returning her attention to Brennan. "Are you okay?"
"I'm scared." A confession Brennan couldn't recall ever making before, not aloud. Not to anybody other than himself.
Emma stood up. "Let's get you back to bed. We'll go for that stroll tomorrow, okay?"
Brennan didn't complain, already feeling exhausted. And... rather disoriented. Emma's voice was in the wrong place. He was on the floor still, she was standing, and Jesse had been standing as well, hadn't he? So Emma was too tall. He turned his head toward where he knew his door to be. He pressed his hands against the floor to brace himself. He was just confused, that was all.
"Brennan?" The concern in Emma's tone was obvious. "Are you in pain, or... What's wrong?"
He shook his head.
"Hey," she said soothingly. "Don't be afraid to lean on me. For as long as you need. I will be your eyes, Bren."
He hesitated. "And Jesse's legs?"
She stared suddenly at him, the words completely unexpected. She didn't have a response.
His blank gaze searched for her face, needing to see the expression there, never finding it. "If it wasn't serious, you'd have already told me."
"Brennan, I..." She still didn't know what to say, wasn't prepared.
He gave up on trying to see and dropped his face down once more. "How long did you think it would take me to notice?"
"I hoped long enough for him to be able to tell you himself." Jesse still didn't talk about it. Ever. "Did he tell you how Shal died?"
"She... she was crushed, when the building collapsed." The words came with difficulty.
"Adam thinks she was already dead, that she," Emma choked up for a moment, swallowing several times, "broke her neck when she fell. Jesse tried to save her. When they found him, he was draped over her body. We thought we'd lost them both. Jess blames himself. He couldn't hold his breath. He nearly died shielding her when she was likely dead already, and he blames himself because he couldn't hold the phase and keep the weight from crushing them. He blames himself."
Brennan grasped blindly for her hand. He would blame himself as well. If he'd lost Emma. He couldn't imagine how much this must be tearing Jesse apart. They would never recover from this. Physically or emotionally. They would never heal.
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It was after three in the morning when Emma left Sanctuary. Brennan and Jesse were both asleep, though she knew Jesse only slept due to the pills.
When she reached the safe-house, she quickly got out of the car before she could change her mind. The air was still damp, threatening more rain, and she pulled her coat tighter around her thin frame. She shivered, probably not from the night's chill, but she told herself that was why. It would be warmer inside.
The door opened easily to her code, and she let herself into the dark building. The first thing she noticed were the computers, at least a dozen of them, all turned on. There were hundreds of pages from notebooks scattered around as well. Emma picked one up. Equations. Nothing she understood.
A man was asleep on the other side of the room, his upper body lying across one of the tables, clearly having drifted off while working. Adam. It wasn't as though he'd been hard to find. Probably wasn't expecting anybody to look for him.
Emma contemplated turning on the main lights, but she could see well enough in the glow from the computer monitors. She walked over to where Adam slept, fitfully, like his dreams plagued him. Grabbing a second chair, she pulled it over, its legs screeching across the floor. She sat opposite Adam.
The noise woke him, and he looked up, startling briefly before his gaze rested on her. She only crossed her arms over her chest and stared back at him. Not a full glare, just watched him.
"Emma."
She couldn't tell if it was meant to be a greeting, or if he had just identified her and happened to say her name out loud. "Adam," she spoke.
"I wasn't expecting to see you." He straightened himself up.
She tried to keep her gaze on him, despite the scars which marred his face. It was like Phantom of the Opera, she thought. None of this was real. She kept her eyes steady, didn't even blink. Then she found her voice. "Jesse and Brennan aren't in much of a condition to come visit."
For a moment, she thought he looked almost... penitent.
"He woke up, by the way," she added.
"Brennan." He nodded. "Good."
Was that all he had to say? Good? "What are you doing here, Adam?" Why wasn't he with them? After four months, why did she still care?
He stood up, smoothed some of the wrinkles from his shirt. "I'm trying to find a way to get us home."
Emma didn't understand. "We are home. At least Jesse, Brennan, and I are. The fact that you're not there with us, that's your own doing."
"No," he quickly corrected. He grabbed some of the papers, staring at them as if they held the clue to the meaning of life. "Jesse is. You, me, and Brennan are not."
"What are you talking about, Adam?" Her tone was dull, asking more to humor him than of real interest. Maybe he'd gone mad out here on his own.
"During the explosion," he replied, gesturing as if his hand movements were as important as speech itself, "Brennan used his powers."
She knew this.
"It caused some kind of..." He couldn't seem to find the words, his hands trying to fill in for him. "There was a disturbance, a tear, or rift, or gateway you could say."
It was all just scribbles to her, his piles of notes. He tried desperately to gain her full attention. Why was she here, she asked herself, what possible reason?
"Emma, listen to me." She looked up at him once more, and that was enough for him to go on. "We inadvertently opened some kind of doorway to another plane of existence, a parallel reality. And we need Brennan if we're to recreate what happened and go back."
Her stare at him was blank.
"This is not our reality."
That was her same wish for the last four months. Only difference was, Adam actually seemed to believe it. "So what, you're suggesting Brennan has the ability to time travel and fix this now? You're talking gibberish, Adam. Shalimar is dead, move on with your life without her." And likely without us, she added to herself.
"No, I'm not talking about time travel. This is completely different. Shalimar is dead, yes, but that is this reality's Shalimar. Ours might not be," he spoke with conviction. "This is not our world."
"You've been reading too much sci-fi," she replied, too tired to deal with his denial. She shook her head sadly. "When you come to terms with losing Shal and with what happened to Jesse, when you can handle it, you know where we'll be. Goodbye, Adam."
And she left.
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TBC...
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