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Darkness Falling
2 Days to change things.
The group of four sat impatiently waiting on the sofa near the computers. Lexa had been careful to position herself with both Jesse and Brennan between her and Shalimar. The two women were at an uneasy truce as they waited for the message from Adam.
When the computer finally beeped to signal that a new message had arrived the group jumped. Taking a deep breath Jesse got up and walked over to the computer. The other three followed as Jesse began to punch in the codes to play the message.
"Hopefully Jesse has decoded the coordinates that I send in the first message. I know that tomorrow is Shalimar's birthday and I wish that I could be with her then. I hate the fact that I have to make it three years in a row that I have missed the celebration.
"With that said, the day after tomorrow is the day we will meet. You are to arrive at one p.m. and I will be joining you in fifteen minutes from that time. If Lexa is indeed still with us I want her to remain at Sanctuary while the mission is in progress. Jesse has his choice to stay home with her or come to the meeting.
"I must cut this short. I will see all of you in two days." The message ended and Adam's image disappeared from the screen.
"I refuse to be left at home while the rest of you go get him." Lexa stated and crossed her arms over her chest.
Jesse, Brennan, and Shalimar exchanged glances quickly.
"We're staying here, Lexa." Jesse replied calmly. Reaching out he took her hand and pulled her to him. "I'm this close to getting to keep you forever and I'm not about to let you get away from me because of something this simple. Shalimar and Brennan can handle this one."
"None of you have even considered the possibility that this is just a set up." Lexa said as she snatched away from Jesse and began to pace back and forth in front of the others. "For all we know he's being forced to do this so someone can lure us out to kill us. If that's the case we are going to all need to go in."
"We have thought about that, Lexa." Brennan answered with an uncharacteristic calm. "If it was a trap to lure us out Adam would have never told you and Jesse to stay home. Shalimar and I will take our chances on this one."
Lexa shot Jesse a glare and left the room.
"She'll calm down later." Jesse said as he turned to face the computer. "You guys can go do whatever you need to do. I'll stay here and work on these security systems."
"I'm going to chance and then head to the dojo for a bit of a workout." Shalimar said as she gathered up her blonde locks into a thick pony tail.
"Bren, you want to come join me?"
"I'll be along." Brennan watched as the feral walked out and then turned back to Jesse. "You really think it's going to be that easy to leave her here."
"I'm not stupid. She'll be fine, upset but fine."
"So are you going to try to go back to school?"
Jesse turned to face him, his expression that of sheer surprise. "I guess I might. I mean, I regret that I dropped out back then; but going back to pre-med would be hard after nearly ten years."
"It could be a step towards a normal life. A normal job, and maybe a wife and kids later."
"A normal life, now there is a good joke. Lexa would never agree to it. She loves the thrill of putting her life on the lone, and I love this work just as much as she does." Jesse typed in a few more commands on the computer. "Which one told you?"
"Lexa did and Shal mentioned something about it the other day." Brennan took a deep breath as he thought back to the conversation with the woman. "Lexa sounded really proud of you. I'm not sure if it was the English lit degree or the start into pre-med, but she really sounded proud."
"She nearly flipped out when she found the English Lit degree. I guess she always say you as the poetry person and thought of me as the computer geek."
"The computer guy is the one we all know. I guess even after all these years we still have our secrets."
"And with Adam coming back there will be even more secrets around here." Jesse sighed. "It will be nice to know that you three aren't going to die because of your powers, but I'm not looking forward to going back to all the secrets and the 'need-to-know-basis' information."
"Then we tell him that we can't operate like that anymore. It might take some time, but I'm pretty sure we'll get our point across."
"On that note I'll get to work on a file or our recent missions so we can prove that equal power does work well."
"Good luck, man." Brennan said as he walked out of the room. He headed to the Dojo, thinking about things along the way. Their missions had changed a lot over the last several months, and he knew that things changed even more in the future. Now, since Adam was no longer around to tell them which missions they had to do and the Dominion was gone as well. In their newfound freedom they had begun to work on restoring the New Mutant Underground, a long tedious task.
In the future things would also be very much the same, but from the direction he had come from it was a lonely sad place. Shalimar's death had affected him, but more so it had affected the other new mutants that he had long ago sworn to protect. He could still remember the swarms of people that had shown up at the funeral. Cheri had been there, but in the back ground where no one could ask her to do anything. It was then that she had made the promise to Brennan. The one promise that, along with another she had given long before, could change the world.
He only had to wait a year, if he was not able to start getting over the pain she would give him a chance to make things right. It had been a reluctant promise on her part, but somehow he knew that she felt it was the right thing to do. Each day it seemed that more and more new mutants went bad and tried to kill their own kind or take over the world, and with a heart-broken team it was just a little hard to stop those things from happening. It had also become impossible to protect the ones that were not corrupt.
This week in the past was both a blessing and a curse. Everything that he had missed was right there in front of him, and unlike in the dreams he had had about this, he could actually reach out and grasp them. It was not a perfect world, but he was with the woman that he loved.
Of course the pain of knowing that it would all end in just a couple of days was also hard. Even armed with the knowledge that he had there was still a chance that he could mes it up an loose her forever. There was no room for error this time around. If he missed this chance there would not be another.
He stepped into the dojo and watched Shalimar for a minute, amazed by her natural grace. "You ready to work with me?"
Shalimar stopped where she was and then reached over and turned off the holograms. "I'm ready, but are you?"
"Don't be so sure of yourself." Brennan stepped up on to the platform and took a defensive stance.
Shalimar dropped into a fighting stance and took a swing at Brennan. He blocked her hit and caught her wrist, pulling her to him. They stood staring into each other's eyes for a minute an then kissed.
2 hours later.
Jesse walked down the hall and stopped in front of Lexa's door. He had hoped that two hours was long enough for the woman to calm down, but he still heard the sound of things being thrown against the wall. Taking a moment to gather up the much needed courage, he opened the door and stepped into the room.
Lexa turned and looked at Jesse, a mix of hurt and anger in her eyes. "Don't you even dare try to calm me down!"
"Lexa, please listen." he reached to take her hand, but she slapped him away. "Don't play this game. Come on and talk to me."
"I'm not prepared to talk to you!" she turned back away from him. "You and the others went to behind my back and discussed this mission with out even getting my advise! I don't think that this is what I wanted for a relationship with you!"
"We knew that you'd never agree to staying here." he took a step towards her. "I'm just trying to do what is right for you, for us."
"If you don't watch your step there will be no more us. You can't preach to me about being more open and then go in and pull the same stunts that you tell me not to."
"And if you get killed or your powers completely destabilize there wont be us. I'm keeping you here because I love you. I don't want anything to happen to you."
"Nothing is going to happen to me." she turned around and leaned into him. "You and I are going to be alright, but you'll have to learn that I'm still at least partially the woman you met. If you want to stop me from doing something you are going to have to take action, make me stay away from whatever it is by physical force or trickery. You cant just tell me no and expect me to listen."
He put his arms around her and kissed the top of her head. "I'm not used to the trickery, so you're going to have to learn to listen to me when I say no." he stepped back from her and took her hand, leading her over to the bed. "You're not doing to bad at following some directions."
"Am I the one who can follow directions or are you?" Lexa whispered and kissed him.
That evening.
The group of four crashed out in the rec room to watch a movie. Jesse and Lexa were in one of the chairs, her sitting in his lap; while Shalimar and Brennan were cuddled on the sofa.
Now that the two couples had managed to talk the day was much more relaxed. For the first time in several days there was no evil stares between Shalimar and Lexa. The two women still felt tension between themselves, but now that they were completely at peace with their men they were more relaxed with each other.
Shalimar watched as Lexa started to fidget. Even though the raven haired woman had resolved the issue with Jesse she had yet to talk to Brennan or Shalimar about her problem with the private discussion. It would never be easy for them to talk to her about their decision to exclude her. The biggest problem in their relationships would always be the choices that they had to make.
It seemed that everything that happened between them was about lies and secrets. With Adam's return they were all prepared for the possibility of more secrets. Even with Jesse's proof that their new system of openness and truthfulness, they were not convinced that things would stay the same. In only forty-eight hours they would get their answer