Act I – Is it Possible?

An hour earlier

She must have cried herself to sleep out there beside the plaques because she awoke some time later; her legs, pins and needles from falling asleep. She remembered seeing some blankets in the ruins below, so she painfully made her way back to the ruins where she curled up and slept.

One Night Earlier

The dusty air slowly cleared. Lexa found Jesse and pulled him out of the rubble that was what was left of the Dominion headquarters. They shakily found their other teammates, one by one.

Except for Adam.

They made a hasty retreat in a shocked daze.

Sanctuary, their home, was gone!

The Double Helix was destroyed.

Brennan hot-wired a SUV they found in the remains of the motor pool. They drove in agonized silence to one of the safe houses, knowing the next few days were going to difficult, rebuilding their lives.

The next morning

The young woman woke suddenly, confused by her surroundings. Her face itched and she absentmindedly scratched some of her numerous scars, a reminder of the explosion that night that changed her life dramatically.

She stumbled over, half walking, half crawling, among the rubble to where she remembered where the pantry had been, looking for something to eat. Only a few stale saltines, which were quickly scarffed down. The rest was rusted and warped cans, with no can opener to be found in the debris.

She made her way to the garage area, hoping to find a car or motorcycle that was still useable. Her blond friend's Ninja was there, mostly unscathed. She remembered several happy rides from before, but they quickly replaced by the reality of today. Trying to remember her friend's name, she started the Ninja.

It started up right away. Remembering the locations of the safe houses in the valley below, she headed in the direction of the closest one. Once there, she was happy to discover that her old codes worked; happy both for her remembering them and that they still worked. Some of her memories were still returning. She still couldn't remember the names of her friends, just their faces.

Momentarily forgetting to set the security codes in favor of settling her protesting stomach, she made a peanut butter sandwich. Satisfied, she set the codes and took a long hot shower, and then raided the medical supplies for aloe vera cream for her numerous scars. Staring at her disfigured face, she wondered how her friends would react and if they would still remember her, if they were still alive even.

She slowly walked over to the workstation, limping slightly from muscle fatigue. She brushed up against the table and a cloud of dust floated away. How long had that safe house been closed up and abandoned? The young woman painfully bent down and searched under the desk for the power strip.

Sighing to herself she waited for the computer to boot up, absently rubbing a scar on her face, a habit she had picked up over the past month or so. She started searching for news of her friends. A story caught her eye, from yesterday's news articles. "Mid-town warehouse explosion, numerous casualties." That tidbit of news pleased her for some odd reason.

She decided to confirm and see if the message system was still operational. With wobbly hands and acute anxiety, she slowly typed, "Reporting in. Status? Situation? E."

Exhaustion combined with the food in her stomach soon over took her. She curled up on the couch and slept hard, confident in the security system.

Several hours later

Clearing out the queue of messages in the system, one struck Lexa as odd. She opened it to read.

She saw Jesse asleep a few feet away, his golden hair plastered to his head. An odd thought flashed through her mind. "I bet he sucked his thumb when he was a little kid." Her foot connected with his shins. "Did you de-activate all of the security codes?" Her voice was hard.

Jesse was instantly alert to the tone in Lexa's voice. "Yes, I did that before I cloned and wiped the hard drive."

"Come, look at this." She pointed at the screen.

Jesse whistled under his breath. "The one shouldn't be active. Either someone is playing a horrible trick on us, or some one knows the codes from a few months ago."

"Well, it is active now. And it was used a few hours ago at Safe house #12," Lexa read off the timestamp and glanced up at Shalimar who was noisily stumbling into the room,

"Whose code is it?" Shal asked, having only heard half of the conversation.

"Come, take a look." Jesse pointed. "It couldn't be though, she's dead. And I thought I had that de-activated."

"Jesse, don't joke with me," Shalimar turned pale when Jesse shook his head.

"I'm not joking, Shal. Someone is using Emma's last code."

Grasping a chairback to steady herself, she asked shakily, "Nobody else knows her code, right?"

"Nobody but Emma."

"But she's dead!" Shal was in shock and disbelief at the facts presented in front of her.

Brennan lurched into the crowded room. "What? Where?" he asked as he looked around at his remaining teammates, seeing the confusion and shock.

Lexa pulled up another screen on another computer, trying to access the video system at that location.

Brennan read the cryptic message and reached over Jesse's shoulder to type in an answer. Their hearts sank when there was no response back.

"Guys, there is someone there," Lexa said slowly as she fiddled with the focus. A shadowy figure was visible sitting at the computers, wet hair plastered down. Another camera shot showed the female walking to the living room area, her face distorted with scars and streaked wet with tears.

"Is the mutant recognition database up yet?" Shalimar asked. Her eyes had to be deceiving her! Oh, Lord, that could not be! It had to be a cruel mistake, a glitch in the system, anything! She could not handle it if Emma was actually still alive, after all these months of believing she was dead. No man left behind! flashed through her head and she swallowed hard.

"Downloading it now," Jesse booted it up and let it run through the females.

One match surfaced.

Emma DeLauro, deceased.

Shal sank into the chair she had been gripping with whitened knuckles, and voicing the question they all had in the front of their minds, "How is that possible?"