Okay, sorry for the delay, my two lonely reviewers and other phantom readers. Enjoy! And thanks for your feedback!

Sarah – Thanks for spreading the word! This chapter should satisfy some of your curiosity…although no white horses. Sorry!

Saynt Jimmy – Has everyone over the age of thirteen really heard of Sid Vicious? I guess there's more hope for humanity than I thought:-)

- Ursula

Chapter 6

Jordan's experiments with Claire went on for three painful nights, and they never varied much in their content. Claire continued to force herself to maintain consciousness for several hours as Jordan hurled various objects at her in an attempt to stimulate her defensive abilities. On the third night, he seemed particularly put off by her lack of response. He spoke angrily, yet maintained his customary calm, as he conducted his experiments.

"I have to confess my frustration. Why aren't you applying yourself? My initial hypothesis as to why we've seen no results is that you're simply not applying your will. Stop trying not to scream and start trying to protect yourself!" He breathed heavily. "Maybe I was wrong. Maybe they did send you back unchanged. Maybe you were some sort of mistake." His voice took on a cold sort of mirth. "It would appear that you're just the same" thwack "stupid" thump "useless –"

Nothing. No sound of impact. Jordan raised his eyebrows in surprise to see Claire still sitting in the center of the room, staring through narrowed eyes at the approaching orb…except it was no longer approaching. It hung spinning in midair mere inches from her face.

"Ha-ha!" Jordan shrieked triumphantly. Claire seemed called out of a trance by his shout, and when she broke her stare at the ball, it thumped heavily to the ground. "It worked!" He bounded jubilantly across the room and attempted an awkward half-hug while Claire remained seated, stunned, in the chair. She winced from his touch on her fresh bruises, but was still too shocked to speak. "Well? What do you have to say for yourself?"

Claire swallowed loudly and attempted to recapture her usual brash manner. "Well, I –" She couldn't suppress a victorious smile. "I have to admit it does sound nice to stop getting the shit kicked out of me."

His answer was to lob another ball in her direction. "Sarcasm. Please." This time she stopped it midway through its path and sent it spinning to the ground. He threw three more in quick succession, and she was able to stop each one, although the last nearly made contact wither her sternum.

She sagged in the chair, exhausted. "Okay Jordan, you've seen that I can do it; you've seen that I can do it more than once. I'm exhausted. Please. Let me go to sleep."

He sized her up, evidently deciding that she would be no more use to him that night. "Alright. Go ahead. We'll continue this tomorrow night." He stopped her as she made to leave the chair. "Claire, come to think of it, why don't you take tomorrow off from your regular duties? Joan can fill in. You've earned a bit of a rest I think." He patted her on the arm in an almost fatherly fashion and she winced again, as uncomfortable with his sudden familiarity as she was with his hand's proximity to her bruises. He seemed not to notice and waved her dismissively from the room.

She stumbled toward her apartment, still exhausted, but nevertheless elated. She had done it! Jordan's experiments, for all the pain they caused, had worked! She felt conflicted regarding Jordan. His tactics had hurt her and he seemed utterly unconcerned for her welfare while he performed his experiments, yet they had worked! His single-minded concentration was frightening to her, but she couldn't deny its effectiveness. She could add another to the list of gifts Jordan Collier had given her since her return. As she walked the corridors of the Center toward her home, she felt the thrill of new discovery. Finally she was truly among the 4400.

With that realization, she was no longer tired. She walked past the door to her tiny apartment and continued to wander the labyrinthine residential hallways of the Center. She half-knew where she was headed the entire time, but she feigned surprise even to herself when she found herself standing in front of the doors to Shawn's penthouse apartment. Why seek him out? She hated to admit it, but the answer was fairly obvious. She enjoyed his company. True, his situation was far removed from her own; he had never dealt with the issues she had before or after their abduction, but she had nevertheless enjoyed the few brief conversations they had shared. Like her, he seemed determined to maintain a certain amount of normalcy in his personal interactions, despite the gravity of their situation. They were members of the 4400, but that didn't mean they had stopped being human beings. Claire was only 22 after all, and she still wanted to goof off and indulge in what she loved in life, forgetting, if for only a moment, the responsibility and pressures of every day. She suspected that Shawn, despite his bigwig position at the Center, wanted much the same thing.

She moved closer to the door, preparing to knock, but paused as she heard the sound of guitar chords coming softly from the interior. A closet musician? She smiled. Maybe they had more in common than she'd thought. She knocked lightly and called, "Are you decent?"

She heard his feet padding across the floor and then the click of a bolt being slid back before he opened the door. "Oh, so you really do lurk out here trying to catch me in my skivvies." He smiled and opened the door wider so she could enter. "What are you doing here? It's after midnight."

"Couldn't sleep." She wandered further into the apartment, and he followed her. She whistled softly. "This is a nice place."

"Yeah, well, Jordan's been good to me."

"Huh."

"What does that mean?"

"Nothing. It doesn't mean anything." She picked up the guitar he had discarded on the couch. "Were those some easy listening hits I heard coming from here before?" She busied herself checking the instrument's tuning.

He grimaced. "Hey, just because music doesn't give you a heart attack or incite mass violence doesn't mean it's no good. You should try it sometime."

"Huh, me? Sing the classics? What, d'you mean like this?" She jokingly strummed the opening chords of Moon River and sang in a mocking Show-White-esque falsetto as she plucked the harmony on the guitar.

She stopped abruptly, scoffing. There was a moment of silence before Shawn seemed to come to his senses. "Yeah, like that. See? That was nice."

"Nice? Ha. Well, in case you haven't noticed, that's not really me." She handed the guitar back to him.

"I don't know. I was doing some research about that music you're always listening to," Claire raised her eyebrows at this confession, but he continued unfazed, pretending not to have noticed, "and it wasn't all like that with the angry guitars and shit. I was working on this when you came in." He frowned in concentration as he plucked the opening notes and began to sing.

"Sometimes I feel so happy,

Sometimes I feel so sad.

Sometimes I feel so happy,

But mostly you just make me mad.

Baby, you just make me mad…"

"Oh," she sighed happily, "The Velvet Underground. I love that song."

"Am I right? It's not all Johnny Rotten and Sid Vicious."

"I guess. But somehow it's just not what I want to hear right now. I want something that I can feel coming up through my feet from the floorboards, something that shakes me up. You know, I want to listen to music that gets me right now. And right now I'm…" She raised her hands in frustration, looking for the right words.

"Angry?" He finished her sentence for her. He put the guitar aside and moved toward her on the couch. "Lost? Lonely?" He bent his head towards her, and her heart beat wildly in her chest. Was this really what she wanted? Some tryst with this boy her birth certificate claimed was over forty years younger than she? She realized that Shawn was every bit as alone as she was, trapped in his position of power while no one around him was willing to get close, surrounded by people but always isolated. His closest friend was Jordan, if the man could be called a friend. With no family that would have him, he was just as adrift as Claire. He interrupted her reverie by placing a firm hand on her shoulder as he moved closer. She yelped and practically jumped from his touch. He had inadvertently pressed one of the painful welts left over from her late nights with Jordan.

"What? What'd I - ?"

She tried to pass it off as nothing at all, smiling dismissively. "It's nothing; I just – I have a – a…"

"A bruise." He wrinkled his brow in concern. He had suspected that Jordan's "no real harm" policy would result in more of the same purple marks he had seen earlier. "Do you want to tell me what's going on?"

She shook her head, still trying to smile nonchalantly. Claire couldn't explain it, but she didn't want Shawn to know about her meetings with Jordan. Would they make her seem weak in his eyes? Lesser?

Shawn changed tactics abruptly. "Let's pretend for a minute that you're in love with me."

Her eyebrows shot up in disbelief. "Excuse me?"

"Bear with me now." He grinned and held out his hands in a pacifying gesture. She looked at him quizzically. "Now since you love me, will you tell me what you get up to with Jordan every night?"

"No."

"No? But you really love me Claire; we're not just talking a little bit of fun here. This is it." He tried his most sincere expression.

The corners of her mouth turned up, but she still looked suspicious as she took a deep breath, seemingly considering his hypothetical situation carefully. "Still, no."

"What?" Shawn put his hand over his heart, taking mock-offense. "Why?"

"Well, if I really loved you, I wouldn't want you to know what I got up to at night with other men, would I? It would just be too painful." She shrugged by way of apology, happy to thwart his attempt to gain information.

"I don't know." He probed his chest gingerly with his fingertips. "This is pretty painful. I think –" He adopted a tragic expression. "I think I'm heartbroken!"

"Shut up!" She leaned over and pushed him playfully. Perhaps she stayed that way a moment too long, just long enough for things to become awkward for the second time that evening. Claire stood up quickly.

"I should go. I mean, I have to go."

He sighed. "Right."

"Um, if you'd like to discuss any other hypothetical situations in the future, just let me know, okay?"

"Sure." Shawn smiled as she hurried toward the door, but she wondered for a moment if she saw a glimpse of hurt and confusion in his eyes. In truth, Shawn's smile masked his very real frustration. He couldn't get answers from Jordan; he couldn't get answers from Claire, but he couldn't stop himself from obsessing over Jordan's so-called experiments. Jordan had once confessed to him his comfort in knowing that the future of the foundation rested in Shawn's hands. He had even referred to his protégé as "pure and unsullied." Despite his firm belief in Jordan's vision for the future, Shawn couldn't disengage his sense of moral wrongdoing. Did it have anything to do with his growing attraction to Claire? He couldn't deny she intrigued him, but his need to know about Jordan's experiments went beyond that to his sense of injustice. He didn't merely want to know; he had to.