Notes: Remember way back in Chapter Ten where we had a nice chat between Envee and Jamie? Well, I'm going back to that, so if you can't remember it, go reread it. Also, come check out my LJ! There's a link to it in my profile, so come drop me a comment, and if you have any questions, just ask.

Chapter Twenty Seven

They were all sitting in the living room, dressed comfortably in loose workout clothing. As she was still trying to control her new power, Envee was sitting cross-legged in the air, a few inches above the floor. She kept dipping lower, but was so far managing to stay airborne.

Jamie had spread a large map of Australia on the coffee table, and was marking off certain spots in what seemed like a random pattern. Everyone waited patiently, sipping their drinks, until she made a triumphant circle in red marker.

"That's where they are," she announced, and everyone crowded forward to see. The red circle was in the middle of nowhere, out in the Australian wilderness. They would have asked if she was sure, if it wasn't Jamie who had done all the calculations-she was never wrong, not once she stated her conclusions.

"Where exactly?" Rogue asked, setting her coffee aside to get a better look at the map.

"Near as I can tell from what files I've managed to decrypt, underground, in a huge base. I'm still working on it."

"Can you get us the exact co-ordinates?"

"Yes."

"Can you get us inside?"

"I don't know. So far, I haven't found anything that hints at how to get inside, and I doubt these people are stupid enough to just leave things like that lying around. I'm surprised they allowed someone to have this much on their computer."

"If you can't figure it out, what do we do?"

"I'm not sure yet, I need more time."

"Okay. What about the actual base, can you get any blueprints or maps or anything?"

"Again, I've only managed to decrypt about thirty-four per cent of the files, I don't know exactly what I've got. I should be able to give you a full report tomorrow morning."

"Alright, I guess I was being a bit premature. Dismissed, except Envee."

Everyone stood up and left the living room, headed off to various parts of the house to do various things. No one was surprised when Selene and Alistor went into Selene's bedroom.

"What's up, boss?" Envee asked, frowning as she floated a couple of inches closer to Rogue.

"How's your control coming?"

"Alright. I can't go higher than a couple of feet or stay up for more than half an hour before I start to lose control, but I'm getting there. I don't have to focus so much on directing myself anymore, which is good. Jamie says that with time, it should come like second-nature to me."

"Good. Alright, you can go."

Envee nodded, and her brow furrowed in concentration as she slowly floated out of the room. Rogue watched her go and felt a small half-smile curl her lips. Watching as Envee tried to gain control over her new power reminded her of the days when she'd been an instructor at the institute, teaching the new recruits how to best utilise their powers in a combat situation. They'd actually liked her lessons, because they got to destroy stuff and have fun, and though she was tough, she wasn't as tough as Logan.

They also learnt to listen to her after the second demonstration where she'd saved their skins in a Danger Room simulation. It wasn't that they were purposefully disrespectful, you just had to prove that you deserved their respect. They didn't want to listen to you just because you were older, you had to actually be better, be able to teach them things that they wanted, and needed, to know.

Rogue sighed and stood up, absently touching the curving knife scar on her arm from a battle long forgotten. It wouldn't do anyone any good for her to dwell on the past, lest of all her. She needed to stay focused, she was too close to the end to let herself relax.

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Jamie shivered, wrapping her arms around her small body. She could remember, with perfect clarity, the instant when they had slipped out of time forever. She had felt it, like a jolt of electricity through her body and mind, had felt the fine threads of time tremble softly, had felt five of those threads break and disappear.

She could feel them all constantly, those thin threads of time stretching out for infinity, billions of them, could see them in her mind as pale silver lines across a great expanse of darkness. They were all part of a whole, just threads of a larger rope, the rope that wound itself throughout her entire being. It was comforting, that rope, it was like a great big teddy bear, because it was eternal. She could manipulate that rope at will, twisting and bending it, manipulate the very fabric of time as she saw fit, but she had never destroyed part of that rope, never used her powers to kill.

She hadn't really been aware of what would happen, because she had never tested the limits of her powers. She hadn't really killed anyone, she reasoned, she didn't affect life, only time. Sending someone out of time would not kill them, it would just… relocate them, to that empty plane where the rope lived, so that they would exist forever, without really living. Time held no meaning for them anymore. So it wasn't really killing, it was just…. No. She was kidding herself. It was true that she hadn't killed them; what she had done was so much worse. She had condemned them to an eternal existence as nothing. They would exist, but not live, not touch, not speak, not feel, for all of that, every breath, every word, every gesture, it all takes a measure of time to do, and they were no longer a part of time. They would just exist, forever, like statues. That was much worse than just killing them.

Jamie shivered again as a small tear trickled down her cheek. She hadn't cried in years, not since she left her parents' house. She touched the tear and stared at her wet fingertips for a long time, for once not really thinking about anything.

She heard the door open and then soft footsteps behind her. She knew from the way she walked that it was Envee, and she quickly brushed at her cheek, just in case, before turning around to face the older girl, her eyes serious and devoid of emotion.

"Do you require something?" she asked, and Envee sighed.

"I remember, the first time I killed," Envee said quietly. "It was our second fight, before you joined, and we were losing. We hadn't yet become the tight-knit group we are now, we weren't working together, and because of that, the mutant was kicking our asses. Rogue was hanging back, letting us stumble our way through it, teaching us how to work as a team. And, uh, I saw Kar get hit with some form of energy, like icy fire, ya know? And I knew that he was gonna get killed if I didn't do something. So I used my powers to knock the mutant back, and found a large rock on the ground, and I used it to… to bash his head in. Once, twice… three times the charm. I can still see the blood as it poured from his head, whenever I close my eyes. Ya don't ever forget that kind of thing, and a part of me doesn't want to, because that is the exact moment that I realised what my life would be like, and I accepted it."

Jamie wasn't sure what to say. For the first time in her life, words failed her. She knew that the Roses had been in fights before she joined, she was the second-to-last member to sign up, before Gary, but she hadn't heard of the other fights. By the time she came along, the Roses were a nearly solid unit, if not quite as close as they were now. She hadn't thought that they hadn't always been, hadn't theorised that it had taken time and effort for them to learn how to be a team.

Jamie firmly stopped herself from thinking about the actual point to Envee's story, pulling her mind away from images of beaten-in heads and pools of blood. She still didn't know what to say, so instead she asked a question. "Why? Why tell me this?"

"Because I've been watching you, ever since you came back from the mission. It's the first time you've killed, and you killed multiple times without an adjustment period. That's gotta be hard. Only, you hide your emotions so well that no one else has noticed. And if they don't notice, they can't help. They can't comfort."

"I do not require comfort," Jamie said, the lie falling smoothly from her lips.

"Bullshit." Envee sighed again and bent her knees so that she was eye-level with the younger girl, placing a hand on her shoulder. "You're a little girl, Jamie. You're barely a teenager, and you've been thrown into a brutal war. You've had to sacrifice your morals and your beliefs time and again for our cause. You don't complain, but I know you want to. You've officially become a mass murderer, and you haven't hit puberty yet. It's alright to get upset. Just let go. Okay? Just let it go."

All Jamie could do was stare at her. Tears welled up in her eyes ,glittering and creating the illusion that the brown in her eyes was shimmering. She blinked, and two fat tears tumbled down her cheeks. A choking sob escaped her throat, and with it, her control shattered. Huge sobs wracked her body, making her shoulders tremble, as tears coursed down her face.

Envee bit her lip at the sight, and sank to her knees as Jamie collapsed to the ground, wrapping her arms around the crying girl. She closed her eyes against her own tears, and whispered a prayer that this would all be over soon.