Here's chapter 2 of the story. I know you've been wondering where Shalimar is and in this chapter you get to find that out. I'm a little disappointed with the feedback in terms of the number of reviews I didn't get but I don't know so many people around here anymore...things change while you're not paying attention to fanfiction. Please try and review, it'd help me out.

'Taylor!'

The woman turned to look behind her into the building she had just exited. Her loose hair blew in the light breeze which was as much caused by the weather as the cars driving past. She frowned slightly as she looked into the darkened foyer but the frown disappeared as a blonde girl came running into sight. She sprinted towards her mother, a book in one hand, her school bag in the other. The woman kept one hand on the door, holding it open until the girl had made her way onto the street and then let it slam closed. She took the book and the bag from Taylor and placed one inside the other with an ease developed out of necessity. They stood there, on the sidewalk as the woman placed the bag on Taylor's back, making sure it was fastened tight before taking the girls hand and looking both ways before stepping out into the road. They crossed with ease, a smile appearing on the woman's face as the little girl chattered away about what she planned to do that day.

As they moved out of the shadows of the buildings the sun lit up their blonde locks. They were so similar it would have been impossible to miss the fact that they were mother and daughter. They both had the same far seeing eyes, the same wild untamable hair, the same fluid movements.

The woman pulled up the sleeve of her jacket and looked at her watch, her eyes opening wider and her eyebrows rising on her forehead.

'Dammit!'

The girl looked up at the woman, concern marring her pretty features. The woman looked down at her and wrinkled her nose.

'Sorry,' she said. 'We're late is all.'

'It'll be okay,' said the little girl, her voice full of determination giving the impression that if everything wasn't okay she was going to have to kick some ass.

They carried on walking at a faster pace until they reached another apartment building. The woman pushed the buzzer and then leaned against the wall waiting for a reply over the intercom. Music floated down from the building above on the breeze and she found herself humming along to a song she knew.

'Hello?'

'Hi, sorry I'm late,' she said.

'You want me to come down and get Taylor so you can get straight off?'

'You're a star and I love you.'

Two minutes later, after goodbyes had been said and hugs exchanged the woman was running along the road. She had five minutes to get to work before she was officially late and no amount of running was going to get her there on time. She slipped into a back alley and jogged along it for a few yards. She came to a halt and looked around her. There were no windows on the buildings on either side and she couldn't hear or see anyone in the immediate vicinity. She looked up, bent her legs and jumped.

She looked around her again, checking out the rooftops. The view was pretty amazing, especially at that time of the morning. The sun wasn't yet at its peak and the freshness of dawn still lingered in the air. The corners of her mouth lifted as she ran across the tops of the buildings, making sure nobody could see her before jumping from roof to roof.

She followed the system for two minutes as she drew closer to her destination. As she reached the building she found another well placed alley and dropped through the crack in the buildings. She landed lightly on the floor before tying up her hair into a loose bun and walking towards a metal door, set into the wall, signs of rust setting in. She pulled it open roughly, anticipating the reluctance of it to swing back on its hinges. The sound of music hit her ears and the smell of beer and cigarettes forced itself into her nose. She breathed it in. There was something comforting about that pungent scent and she smiled as the noise of voices drifted towards her.

She stepped in and slammed the door behind her.

'We've received reports from contacts of the CIA that she works around here,' Lexa stated as the car slid along the streets silently. It had been over twenty four hours since her and Jesse had picked up Brennan and since then they had managed to travel from Vancouver on a CIA jet to New York City. Even given the fact that there had been twenty four hours between then and now it had been impossible to fill Brennan in on everything that had happened and for him to do the same. They had each told the other the cliffs notes versions and Lexa had hoped that it didn't make the four years apart sound trivial.

'Do they know anything more?' Brennan asked, looking out of the window as the tall buildings sped past.

'We didn't keep tags on you guys, didn't think it was right to track you. What we know now we've learnt in the past few months, ever since the Dominion became a more urgent threat.'

Jesse pulled the car over to the side of the road, easily fitting the vehicle in between two others. He turned in his seat to look at Brennan, who was still more than a little distracted by the New York City landscape.

'You wanna go in alone?' he asked. He knew what was between Brennan and Shalimar, always had even when they refused to acknowledge it.

'No,' Brennan said after a long pause. 'You guys haven't seen her either, who says I get to be the first.' He pushed open the car door and stood up on the sidewalk, people moving past him at high speeds, all of them desperate to get somewhere. He was nervous. Four years ago he wouldn't have believed it possible that he could have spent so little time in Shalimar's presence and now he was uneasy at the thought of seeing her again. He wanted to find out how she had been in the years which had passed since they had last seen each other but now it was daunting. How was he supposed to tell her about his life and vice versa when they didn't even know each other anymore? What if she had changed into a new person? What if she hated him?

He waited for Lexa and Jesse to join him on the sidewalk and allowed Lexa to move ahead of him to a door under a bright neon sign, blinding even in the daylight. She pushed the door open and the sound of music washed over them. They all walked in, having to wait for their eyes to adjust to the darkness.

Brennan found her instantly. She was wiping down the bar, her arm reaching from one side to the other, a grey cloth clutched in her hand. She raised the other hand to brush an errant strand of hair away from her face. It was tied up messily on top of her head and Brennan watched as tendrils which hadn't been caught up in the hairband brushed against her neck. He could have watched her forever, she was so graceful and her movements were so elegant. He stood in the entrance to the bar, unsure what to do next. Thankfully Jesse made the decision for him.

He walked past the other two, who still seemed to be taking in the view and headed straight towards the bar. He leant against it and looked at Shalimar. She looked like the same woman he had always referred to as his sister. But she seemed older, more mature. Not that she could ever have really been considered as immature but she seemed to have grown up a lot in four years. He had a feeling that he preferred the old Shalimar.

She stacked the glasses, hearing the smashes and clinks as they bumped against each other. She had only been at work for a few hours but she already wanted to leave. She was tired of the normal life she was leading, she felt restless. The feeling hit her occasionally and she would be struck by this intense desire to return to Sanctuary and Mutant X, to embrace that part of her life, the part that she made the pretense of having left behind.

She frowned as she felt eyes boring into the back of her neck. She straightened her back, trying to ignore the feeling and dismiss it as paranoia. But tears sprang to her eyes and her bottom lip began to quiver. She could feel him. He was in the room and he knew she was there. She wanted to turn around to face him but she couldn't afford for her life to become any more complicated than it already was. She had bigger priorities than that now, including her daughter. She couldn't head down that road again, she couldn't allow herself to care about him.

She could feel Lexa and Jesse as well. She could sense their anxieties, she could sense how much they wanted her to turn around and look them in the eyes but she couldn't. Life always got too hard when she let people in, a lesson she had ironically learnt from Lexa.

She walked over to her boss and claimed ill health as a reason to go home. She couldn't be where they were. She had to get out of there. She walked through a door at the opposite end of the bar to Jesse and let herself out, grabbing her jacket and bag as she went.

Once she had reached the outside world she leant against the brick wall, cool and slightly damp. She felt like she was being suffocated and she tried to take deep breaths to fill her lungs. Her eyes closed and she felt her breathing regulate itself. She knew they would find her but she needed time to prepare. She couldn't face them without readying herself first.

'Can I help you?' asked a tall brunette as she looked Jesse straight in the eye.

'I'm looking for a woman called Shalimar,' he replied. He had seen her leave from behind the bar and he knew that shewasn't there anymore. She had gone, she had run at the first sign of them but he was hoping against hope that she was just in the back of the building.

'She's just gone home. She said she wasn't feeling very well,' the woman said with a small smile.

'Thanks.'

He turned around and looked at the two people waiting expectantly. He lowered his eyes and felt his shoulders droop. He had been hoping to talk to Shalimar, he had missed her more than he let anyone know.

She turned suddenly at the sound of the buzzer. She had been sitting in her apartment, wondering what to do about the whole Mutant X situation. She had watched the sky gradually getting darker as night drew in. She became more alive, and more restless. It was like she couldn't even sit down she was so full of energy.

She stood up and walked over to the buzzer set into the wall. She would usually have gotten home at that time of night and Taylor would have been dropped off. But she didn't want to take the chance that Brennan, Lexa and Jesse had found her. She didn't want to face all of that drama that night. Despite having so much energy inside of her, rushing through her veins she was exhausted. She was tired of all the complications that it appeared she couldn't get away from.

She pushed the button connecting the intercom with the one on the ground floor and breathed a sigh of relief as she heard Taylor's distinct breathing. She had clearly been running along the road, her energy levels increasing as Shalimar's did.

'Hey,' Shalimar said as she leant against the wall of her apartment, a smile appearing on her face as she pictured Taylor. She was probably beyond messy after a day of playing around and Shalimar could see her crazy hair, something she inherited from her mother.

'Hey mummy,' came the answer from the little girl, her voice breathless and coming out in short gasps. Shalimar heard the footsteps of Elizabeth, the friend who had been taking care of Taylor all day.

'Hi Lizzy,' Shalimar called out. 'I'll come down.'

Thirty seconds later Shalimar pushed open the door and had her knees enveloped in a huge hug from Taylor. She laughed out loud, the noise rising in the quiet night air.

'You dropping her off tomorrow?' Elizabeth asked.

'Yeah, if you're sure that's okay,' Shalimar replied, feeling extremely guilty at how much work Elizabeth was putting in to look after Taylor without getting any kind of payment for it. Shalimar had put forward the proposal but Elizabeth had refused on the grounds that she loved looking after the little girl. But Shalimar knew it was because Elizabeth knew about her current financial situation, the reason why she could just about afford to rent an apartment.

'Okay, I'll see you tomorrow,' she said hugging Shalimar before turning to Taylor. 'And you had better think of something to do.'

'Okay, bye Elizabeth,' Taylor replied, before grabbing her mothers hand and attempting to drag her inside.

Shalimar looked across the street just as a car pulled up. Her eyes flashed in the dark as she looked at the woman in the passenger seat. She didn't want to do the whole arguing thing at that point in time.

'Honey, go inside and I'll meet you up there in a minute, okay?' Shalimar said as easily as she could, trying not to alert Taylor to the presence of Mutant X. She watched the door shut and Taylor push the button to get in the lift before turning to greet them.

'What are you doing here?' she called out before they had even begun to cross the road.

'Shalimar, we just need to talk to you,' Jesse replied. He didn't want to face an angry pissed off feral but he had to talk about things with her, she had to know what was going on so she could make an informed decision.

'What about?'

'The dominion,' Lexa said. She looked Shalimar straight in the eye and saw her frown slightly. It looked like she might have been interested but then her expression changed.

'I left that behind a long time ago. I have a different life now, one that I want to concentrate on and unfortunately the Dominion and you don't feature in it.' She knew what she had said was cruel but she had to get rid of them. There was no way she was getting Taylor involved in the crap that Shalimar had left in her past. She turned with a flick of her hair, knowing that he was standing beside the car, watching her every movement, choosing to remain hidden in the shadows. But she chose not to acknowledge his presence, if she did she knew she would be stuck there forever. She rammed her key into the lock of the door and yanked it open. She turned again, her eyes focused on the floor and slammed it shut behind her. She knew that if Jesse had chosen to he could have phased his way through it but she was hoping that he would respect her decision.

She ran up the stairs two at a time not wanting to waste time waiting for the elevator. She could feel the tears welling up all over again. Before she started crying she reached her floor and saw Taylor standing outside the door, waiting quietly. Shalimar smiled at her, trying to reassure her that everything was okay but knowing that Taylor would know quite how wrong everything was.

'Come on, you have to get to bed.'

Shalimar shut the door behind her silently. Taylor had fallen asleep almost instantly and Shalimar was thankful that the usual barrage of questions hadn't come. She couldn't have handled the interrogation from her.

She walked out of the apartment, picking up her keys as she went knowing exactly where she was going. She turned right into the stairwell and walked up the stairs. Eventually she reached a door and pushed it open. The night air was cool and fresh. Shalimar slid a brick left there for the purpose in between the door and the frame so it wouldn't lock her out when it slammed closed.

She made her way towards the edge of the rooftop. The skyscrapers of New York were laid out before her, their lights twinkling in the darkness, drawing her to them. She loved the country, it was her natural habitat after all. Her original reason for coming to New York was that she could easily get lost in its crowds. There were so many people, all of them with a place to be and they were all constantly moving around. But gradually the charms of the city and city life had grown on her. She loved that there were people everywhere you looked, but she also loved that when she wanted to get away from that she could climb the few flights of stairs to the roof of her building and she would reach peace and tranquility. She had never believed that it would happen but she had become a city girl.

She felt him before she heard him. She had always felt an intense connection with Brennan, even after only knowing each other for a few days they had forged this link. She wasn't quite sure how to define it but she liked that she knew where he was within a radius of 100 feet. Her ears picked up the sounds of his footsteps as he walked through the door and onto the roof. She turned as she heard the sound of the brick being kicked out of the way by his foot. He probably hadn't even seen it.

'Brennan!' she called, but it was too late. The door closed behind him with a dull bang.