Darkness Falling
Bohemianbabe
Ok guys. Fast approaching the end of the story! It will almost be a relief to have one thing that I can put on the list as finished. I hope that all of you are also reading "Second Chances". It looks like things are slowly falling back into place with the writing. I have re-written most all of the one shots I had lost, and fortunately had one that a friend had saved.
miss feral's revenge: i know that i havent been online lately, but neither have you. i'll try to catch you sometime this week. then you can pester me for more chapters.
everyone: my work will have my traveling a lot this summer. i will be trying very hard to get all of my writing in as much as i can but i cant promise a lot of updates. i will give it my all though. i hope that you will stick through this insanity with my and maybe even bring a few more of your friends into my little following. i appreciate all of the reviews i have gotten so far. each time i have felt like giving up one of you has sent me a review that has kept me going. i'd especially like to thank redhead2. she has given me many a smile on days when things have gone wrong. both in her stories and in her reviews.
and of course there is a whole longer list of writers whom i greatly appreciate. you all know who you are due to the reviews i have sent to each and everyone of you. keep up hte good work.
Now on to our story!
4 days to change things.
Shalimar walked into the kitchen to help Lexa prepare breakfast only to be greeted with an icy stare from the other woman. She knew that Lexa could hold a grudge, but had hoped that maybe the brunette's harsh words the day before had only been from the heat of the moment. Now, being bored through by the all-all-too-cool, cool blue eyes she knew that she had been wrong.
"I really am sorry about yesterday." She said as she walked over to the counter and started to measure up the coffee.
"You are sorry about yesterday! I think that's about the most irritating thing you've ever said to me since I got here!" Lexa shook her head. "For a group that has preached to me about trust you sure don't seem to practice it yourselves."
"I just was trying to find out if continuing the treatments would kill you, or possibly the baby if there was one. I did not go in there and tell him that you thought there was a possibility. That is something that you should tell him, not someone else; if it ever happened."
"So how exactly did it come to him searching me out and bombarding me with questions about how I felt about things? And he did ask me about everything, from kids to marriage."
"He came up with it on his own. All I did was answer him when he asked if you were scared because of the night before. I didn't even spell out what you were scared about. He's smart and he loves you."
"I told him and I'm telling you, that 'love' word is not something I ever want to hear. I've lived for as long as I have by breaking off all personal feelings, and the few I allowed myself to start feeling here have been the cause of a lot of pain lately. Maybe it's not the happiest way to live, but it is a lot easier."
"You can have the kitchen to yourself." Shalimar turned and walked out of the room. She was already stressed from the knowledge that maybe she had stepped over a few lines when she had talked to Jesse before, and arguing with Lexa was not going to do anything to help alleviate that stress.
Walking down the hall she inwardly cringed when she saw Jesse headed toward her. She knew that she had nowhere to hide, and therefore no way to get out of talking to him. It was a certainty that the man would want to talk to her, even if she did want to avoid that particular ritual for a while longer.
"Shal, have you got a few minutes?" Jesse asked when he reached her.
"Sure." She gave him her best fake smile and followed him over to the sofa. "What's on your mind?"
"I get the feeling you already half know so I'll just go straight to the point. I all but proposed to her last night and then she made it perfectly clear that she doesn't want a relationship."
"I don't think it was so much you as it was her angry with me. She thinks I went straight to you and told you everything she and I had talked about earlier."
"So that's why you were so selective in how you said things yesterday. You were trying to tell me with out telling me."
"I just wanted to make sure that your antidotes wouldn't kill her or the baby if there was one."
"She wouldn't have cared if the pregnancy had been terminated, only if her life had been put in danger and she might have been ok with that. She misses her brother."
"I know she misses him, but I also know you're wrong about something. Since I already told you most of it I may as well seal my fate. If she is pregnant she plans on keeping the baby. She said that she wouldn't have a baby with any other man, but with you it is different. Even though she won't say it, I think she really does love you."
"Lets not go there for now, at least not about me and Lexa. You and Bren have any plans for marriage or kids?"
"We've talked about it. He and I would both love to have kids, one day; and we would like to have those kids together. I guess time will tell how that all works out."
"He'll be good for you. Adam and I always saw it. We used to talk about it when I was helping him with the lab work. You know, looking back I wonder if he really needed the extra set of hands or if he knew that I'd eventually have to be the one in there."
"Maybe it was a little of both. I wish he was here so we could all stop living with a death sentence over our heads. I think that once Lexa can stop worrying about her life being on the line she can start learning to be in a relationship. Not to mention the fact that you could use the sleep and rest. You may not have to worry about your powers killing you, but you are going to kill yourself from exhaustion if you aren't careful."
"There will be plenty of time for me to rest after you three are stabilized. For now I get to enjoy what was always Adam's job, worrying about everyone."
"Just don't kill yourself before you save the rest of us."
"I won't." Jesse gave her a gentle smile and then stood up to leave. "I'll try to calm her down for you."
"Don't worry about it."
"Guys I've got something!" Brennan called as he ran into the room. "There was a message sent to our computer last night. It's from Adam."
"Let's go see what is in the message." Jesse said as he headed to the computers. He sat down and quickly pulled up the video message.
"Jesse, Brennan, Shalimar, and hopefully Lexa, I'm sending this message to you because there has been a slight break in the situation. I know that it has been a long time since the day that I was lead off by the Creator and the others with the Dominion, and I am hoping that you are all well. According to the original dates Lexa should have died a month ago, but I'm hoping that my capable student has found a way to at least prolong her life in his search for a cure. If he hasn't then I address you, Brennan and Shalimar, more than I address him.
"If Lexa is gone the only job I have for Jesse to do is decoding this message for the coordinates. I am giving you strict orders to let him grieve for her as long as he needs to. I know that when he lost Emma he never got the chance to grieve for her, and I do not want that building up to bring him to a breaking point. If this does not work he may be the only chance that new mutants have.
"Once you have the coordinates wait for my next message. It will tell you when to meet me, and it will be sent to you in two days. I know that this time frame will make preparations and Jesse's decoding that much more difficult but it is the only chance we may have at this working.
"The good news is that after this meeting takes place there will no longer be such a death sentence for new mutants. I am hoping that I have reached you before it is too late, but I am even more hoping that this wasn't necessary at all. I have all faith in the belief that Jesse could find the cure on his own; that is why I have been careful not to contact you until I was sure that our meeting would not be intercepted.
"I leave you all for now, and will hope to see you at the assigned place and time." The recording ended, leaving the three in silence.
"So I guess Jesse did his work pretty well since I'm still alive." Lexa said from the doorway. Seeing the tears that were starting to form in Jesse's eyes she walked over to him and gently pressed her lips to his. "I need to talk to him alone."
Shalimar and Brennan nodded and walked out of the room, heading off for the rec area.
"So I guess that Jess is quite a bit smarter than we ever thought he was." Brennan said as he sat down on one of the sofas.
"More like smarter than you thought he was. I always knew exactly how smart Jess was; remember what I told you about him and the almost medical degree."
"It looks like he might have a shot at completing it now."
"I don't know. It's been a long time since he was in school, and after all the time that has passed I'm not sure that he'd be happy to just go back to that kind of thing." Shalimar sighed and leaned back in Brennan's arms. "I really wish he hadn't been forced to drop out in the first place."
"We all have things that we wish could have turned out differently." Brennan answered in a bitter sweet tone. He now only had four days to come up with a way to save Shalimar. "It would be nice if we could all just go back in time and fix everything that went wrong."
"It would be. But then I guess there are some mistakes that have to happen so we can have a chance to find something better. If Adam's research hadn't gone the way that it did you and I might have never met."
"Good point." Brennan sighed. "I still wouldn't mind changing just a little of the small mistakes though. Things like waiting so long to tell you the truth about how much I love you."
"That almost became you're biggest mistake." She took his hand in hers. "I've been thinking about what I want when we finally get married."
"What you want?"
"Planning the wedding and all." She tightened her hold on his hand. "Let's just have a small ceremony. Maybe even just the two of us and a witness."
"You don't want a real wedding?" Brennan asked in surprise. He always had wondered why she had not protested to his idea to get married the night of her birthday with out any of their friends being there.
"It hardly seems fair to have a real wedding. Emma's gone and so is my father. I wouldn't know where to begin looking for my mother and even if I did it wouldn't feel right with out at least one of your parents there."
"So you don't even want a small ceremony with just Jesse, Lexa, and Adam there?"
"I want them to be a part of it, but I think that when we exchange our vows I'd rather it be more intimate. Just the two of us and who ever marries us. We could have a small celebration afterwards with the others."
"You think about it and make sure that it is what you want. I'm willing to do this anyway you choose."
"Thank you." She whispered. "Now let's just spend the rest of the day together."