Chapter 18

By AliasJaneDoe

Lexa fried the security camera with a laser blast before becoming visible once more and unlocking the door to Jesse's cell. He and Emma both stared at her.

"Who the hell are you supposed to be?"

Sighing in exasperation, she shot back, "Luke Skywalker, and I'm here to rescue you." She rolled her eyes. "I'm Lexa, I'm not from this world, Sparky brought me here, and just shut up and get up because I'm on your side, I need your help, and we're getting out of here."

Jesse cast a glance over at Emma before returning his gaze to Lexa. "You need our help?" That was rich.

She shrugged. "Yeah. I wanna get home, okay? And you want out of here, right? So accomplishment of mutual goals."

Jesse cocked his head to the side. "Ah."

"Are we teaming up and kicking this Brennan and Shal's asses or what?" She stared pointedly at Jesse.

"I can't walk," he replied. Not defeated or making excuses, merely a statement of fact.

"Oh god," Lexa groaned, "you're that one."

Jesse's eyebrows lifted. "That one what?"

Lexa moved on to Emma's cell and flung open the door. She had hoped to just leave the psionic freak right where she was, but she couldn't carry Jesse on her own. "Tick tock here, people. Move now, chat later."

Emma shrugged and bounced to her feet. "The mouse ran over the clock," she said in a singsong voice.

"What?"

"Hickory Dickory Dock," Emma replied.

Lexa glared at her. "Are you a mental patient or something?"

"That one what?" Jesse repeated as the two entered his cell.

"On the topic of mice, you happen to lose three blind ones?" she asked him. "Well, technically one blind, the other two are just--"

"Yes," Jesse interrupted, pushing his palms against the floor and shoving himself as upright as possible. Lexa and Emma each draped an arm over their shoulders and hauled him up, dragging him out of the cell. "How are they?" He was surprised to find that he cared enough to ask.

"Emma's fine, although irritating. BlindBoy and Adam are probably both dead. Fighting their doubles for DNA or brainwave dominance or something. There's some science geek explanation for it."

"Temporal Entropic Cascade Failure," Jesse mumbled, pushing aside his thoughts of how that Brennan and Adam being dead made him feel. He glanced back at the third cell which was still vacant. "That would explain why Brennan... Oh my god, this means I was right. We've got to get pi-- err, people sorted here and fast. If we all don't get back to our own dimensions, we won't have homes left to get back to."

Lexa placed her free hand over Jesse's mouth, then bent the light around them, turning the three all invisible. "That's what we're trying to do here, Jess. And from here out, silence is golden."

-----

"I'm going with you." Brennan's tone was clear that he didn't want any argument about it.

Jesse was quick to shake his head anyway. "Not a good idea," he objected. "We don't know yet if this..." He waved his hand in front of Brennan's face.

"It has to be," he replied, cutting Jesse off before he could continue.

"Even so, you just nearly died, Bren," Emma said softly. She couldn't seem to stop looking into his eyes now that they could actually catch her gaze.

"He stays here," Shalimar stated firmly, glaring at Brennan to silence any protest. "Your vision coming back is great, but what really matters right now is that you're the only key we've got. We can't risk Eckhart capturing you, and also if anything happens with Adam while we're gone, you're taking him to Naxcon. End of discussion."

Jesse nodded. At the moment, Brennan was priceless. However, he still agreed with Shalimar that if this Adam's vital signs changed, they'd have to send their only way of accessing other dimensions into one in order to save Adam's life. He couldn't die, because they couldn't risk him taking the other Adam on this world with him.

Shalimar and Jesse both headed out of the lab, clearly seeing things as being settled. Emma turned to follow, but Brennan grabbed her hand. "Be safe, okay? I..."

"I will." She gave him a slight smile as he released her hand. Then she pressed a quick kiss to his cheek before turning and rushing to catch up with the others.

-----

Lexa, Emma, and Jesse ducked quickly into a dark room as another patrol of guards moved through the hallway. The door snapped locked behind them. Then the lights in the room came on.

"Ms. Pierce, Mr. Kilmartin, please be seated," Eckhart's voice instructed.

The three spun around awkwardly. Eckhart, Brennan, and Shalimar were sitting in a row of four chairs along one side of a table. Two other chairs were placed across from them.

Eckhart turned a laptop around so that the screen faced where they stood. It showed the room with six glowing forms inside it. "Heat sensors."

Brennan and Shalimar both appeared smug, and Lexa wondered who's idea it had been as she returned herself, Jesse, and Emma to being visible. She considered trying to take them all out, but the two other mutants were more than a match for her.

"Stop looking petulant and sit down," Brennan instructed. "And don't try anything. You need me alive. The same can't be said about you."

Lexa reluctantly helped Emma get Jesse into one of the free chairs. He held onto the side of the chair and the table in order to keep himself upright. After making certain he was okay, Lexa took the other chair on that side of the table.

Which left the only other open chair on the opposite side of the table. Shalimar patted it encouragingly. "Emma honey, come sit with us."

Emma walked around the table, grabbed the back of the chair, and dragged it over beside Lexa. She promptly sat and crossed her arms over her chest.

Brennan's expression changed to one of barely restrained anger. He stood abruptly and hauled the chair, with Emma still in it, back around the table and deposited it next to where Shalimar sat. "You're one of us," he warned her before removing his grip from her and the chair.

"Now, let's talk," Eckhart said as Brennan returned to his seat.

Lexa and Jesse exchange a look, trying to figure out why they were being invited for a chat when the other side clearly held all the cards.

"You know I'm right," Jesse finally said.

"It's hailing," Shalimar confirmed.

Jesse visibly tensed. "When we sort things out, what happens to her?" He nodded towards Emma.

Brennan scowled at him. "We'll take care of our own. It's not your concern."

Lexa wondered why Jesse hadn't asked about himself first. For all they knew, his friends were dead and he would be left on this world alone save for an Eckhart who most likely had been told the location of Sanctuary by the traitorous Brennan who sat across from them. Lexa quickly checked her feelings about that. She knew her concern for this Jesse came from her care of her own back home, and she could not allow herself to think like that. She couldn't entertain the possibility that she'd been falling for her Jesse.

"It is my concern," Jesse spat back. "You killed my double."

Brennan frowned and glanced at Emma before leaning on the table toward Jesse. He bent as close as possible to his ear and whispered, "I didn't kill you, Jess. She did."

-----

"We've got a problem," Jesse said from his seat in the car that was currently parked on the edge of the road. He poked at his laptop's keyboard some more. They'd not been able to take the Helix due to storm warnings. Now they were stuck in the middle of an almost zero visibility hailstorm.

"Do we want to know what you're thinking?" Shalimar asked.

His brow furrowed. "Not really."

Shalimar and Emma both sighed. "Out with it."

At that moment, the torrents of hail stopped and the storm vanished. Jesse quickly typed some more before finally putting the small computer aside. He took a deep breath before starting. "There are strange weather patterns being reported all over the world."

Emma felt herself start to worry. "Meaning?"

"I think what happened to Brennan and Adam is also happening to the planet."

"What?" Shalimar grabbed for the laptop. "How the hell is that possible? It's not like there are two Earths in this dimension."

"No." Jesse shook his head. "But we're still mixed up. Look, it is very hard to explain, and I know you'll just roll your eyes if I try, but what we thought we knew, turns out it's a lot bigger than that."

"How much worse is this thing going to get if we can't stop it?" Emma asked.

"Ummm..." Jesse shrugged uncomfortably. "It could mean the end of the world. Not to be overly dramatic or anything."

"How..." Emma stared at him. "How do we fix it?"

But she already knew the answer and tuned out as he replied. They all had to go back to their own realities. She felt both terrified and numb. She was required to give up Brennan.

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