So guys, sorry it's taken me so long to post again. The good news is that this is a long one and…I've gotten some more reviewers! Hooray! Although you might all abandon me after this chapter…I dunno. So, enjoy!

-Ursula

Sarah – Yes, Jordan continues to be psycho, but I can't help feeling he thinks he's doing right. There's more of Shawn in here; hopefully that will satisfy you for a bit:-) Thanks for all your great reviews!

Saynt Jimmy – Did you really think I'd answer that? ;-)

Lilsam/Rockstarhobbit/Indiepunk – Thanks for reviewing you guys! I'm glad you're enjoying it. Hopefully this chapter is as good for you!

Chapter 7

She tried to maintain confidence upon entering Jordan's apartment the following night, not knowing what new form of torture he could have invented to provoke her now that she seemed to have passed his initial test. He led her to the same room they always used, but before she could settle herself in the chair, he asked:

"Take off your shirt please Claire."

"Excuse me?"

"Don't be silly. I want to see if the wounds from our experiments are healing faster than average due to your newfound abilities."

"Jordan, you could just ask me." He gave her the same disapproving look a parent gives a child when she returns home with a muddy skirt from playing in the ditch next to the house. She sighed and pulled her t-shirt over her head. He may have a brilliant plan for the future of mankind, but Claire couldn't deny herself several thoughts along the lines of boys will be boys as she submitted to Jordan's scrutiny. It wasn't the first time Jordan had seen her naked torso, she supposed he had wanted some comparison point before the so-called physical experimentation had begun, but she struggled to keep her head high and the smirk from her expression as he looked at her. "They're not. As you can see."

He cleared his throat loudly. "That's fine." She hastily replaced her shirt, indulging in a single sneer when her face was hidden by the fabric.

He said nothing and she sat docilely in the chair. "Very well. Shall we begin?" She shrugged, trying not to betray the sudden wave of nervousness that had come over her upon seeing that familiar pile of heavy projectiles in the corner. She wasn't sure whether she could do it again, whether she could repel them as she had the previous night. What if it was a fluke? Her heart thundered in her chest, and she took a deep breath to calm herself. She concentrated fiercely as Jordan picked up his first sphere. She narrowed her eyes as he cocked his arm to throw, and saw the ball leave his hand and travel in a smooth arc toward her. But the arc was incomplete. The ball stopped several feet away from Claire and hit the ground with a thud.

"Haha!" she shouted jubilantly. She felt effervescent, light, buoyed by her newfound power.

Jordan smiled, and Claire's relief was short lived as she concentrated on repelling the barrage of objects he threw at her in quick succession. Jordan allowed himself the time to marvel at Claire's poise. As she sat quietly in the chair, her back ramrod straight and her countenance oddly serene, he was reminded of a museum exhibit he had once seen, a recreation of an Egyptian temple. Lined against the temple wall there had stood a row of statues, the Egyptian gods with their human bodies and animal heads, staring impassively at the visitors as they ambled by, just as heedless of the flashing cameras as they had been to the pleas for mercy from their subjects several millennia ago. As Claire sat there, driving back everything he threw at her, her eerie calm seemed to goad him on, encouraging him to throw harder, to aim better, and as a result, he felt almost frustrated when none of his projectiles made contact with their intended targets. They spent the better part of an hour at the activity, Claire's enthusiasm at her initial success slowly souring into exhaustion. When Jordan paused to gather up some of the dispersed balls, she took the opportunity to speak.

"Jordan, I'm done. I mean, what more is there to do? I can do it, right? Are we going to sit here all night while you lob these things at me?" His response was to throw another, which she sent spinning to the floor with only a cursory glance. "Jordan, come on." Her annoyance was plain, but he feigned deafness and threw another. She repelled it. She couldn't believe he was continuing to harass her, when it seemed his point had been proven! Her annoyance turned to anger as Jordan threw the next ball. She stared at it until she felt it must smash into a million pieces, but instead of exploding from the force of her rage, the ball changed in its course and flew back towards Jordan, hitting him squarely in the chest. The breath was knocked out of him with a satisfying whooshing sound. He stared at her, momentarily breathless, and she let out a startled laugh.

She half-smiled up at him as he approached. "Sorry about that Jordan, I didn't know I could do that! Now do you think we could - ?" He drew his arm back and hit her squarely across the face with the back of his open hand. Her head whipped around with the force of the blow, and her eyes widened in shock.

He fairly snarled. "Subject shows resistance to external threats but is still incapable of defense against human assailant."

The next morning the welt rose angrily on her cheek, red and unmistakable. Claire stared at herself woefully in her bathroom mirror, knowing that she was expected on the Center floor in a matter of minutes and that there was no amount of makeup that would hide the mark Jordan had left on her cheek. Her mind whirled crazily, as it had for the past twelve hours, oscillating between fear and confusion. She exhausted herself trying to decipher the meaning of Jordan's blow. Was it really, as he claimed, the next step in his experimentation, his attempt to teach her to repel the human hand as easily as she did other objects? It hadn't felt that way at the time. Claire was no stranger to the back of an angry man's hand, and to her it had felt much more like rage and retaliation than experimentation. She fully realized that there was only one person at the Center who could help her through her predicament, but she dreaded asking him.

Shawn hurried down the hallway to the first key lecture he was supposed to supervise that morning before he heard someone hiss his name.

"Shawn!" He turned in the direction of the sound, but the branching corridor made it difficult to see who was calling him. "Shawn!" the voice called again, urgently. He moved toward the sound, away from the main corridor, and was surprised to find Claire, slouched in a dark corner. He had assumed that she wouldn't want to talk to him after the incident in his apartment two nights earlier. He swore to himself that he hadn't intended to kiss her, but he couldn't help himself when he was around her. She made him feel like exactly what he was, a young man; not a healer or the next great savior of mankind, but just a regular guy. A regular guy with sub-par musical tastes, but normal nonetheless. Whenever they were together, he felt barraged by contradictory emotions. He felt sure of himself, yet that he needed to prove himself. He wanted to protect her, but he knew she would never accept his help. He wanted to tell her what he was feeling, but he felt completely uncertain of her own regard for him. He was left with an intense sense of frustration; completely at a loss for how to behave around her.

And today was no different. He knew he wanted to do whatever she asked long before he saw her damaged face and the pain in her eyes. He noticed how tired she looked; her hair hung limply in her face and her clothing was wrinkled.

Her words tumbled out in a rush as she barely paused for breath, afraid she would lose her nerve. "Shawn, look, I know we haven't always gotten along, and I really don't want to hassle you." Looking at her face in the shadows and remembering the night they had spent in his apartment, Shawn was hard pressed to remember any time when they hadn't "gotten along." Her eyebrows were drawn together in consternation, yet she seemed so anxious and sad; Shawn had no idea what to expect from her.

"I need you to do me a favor." She turned her face toward him for the first time and the purplish reds of Jordan's angry mark made themselves plain. "I need to work the floor this morning, and I would – look, I wouldn't ask, but – I don't know if – Could you heal this for me?" Her voice quavered for a moment, but she regained her composure quickly.

Shawn stared at her, mouth agape, completely at a loss as to how to respond. "Who did this to you?" He knew even as he asked it that she would never answer the question.

"It's not important. Please." She looked into his eyes with such wild distress; he knew how difficult it must have been for her to even ask for his help.

Still searching for the correct response, his only recourse was to lighten the tone to that of their accustomed banter. "If I take care of this for you, will you tell me what's been going on with you and Jordan?" His tone was joking, but the question was serious.

She tried a tentative laugh. "Are you kidding?" When he didn't immediately respond, he saw the beginning of an angry flush spread on her already colored cheeks. "What, is this bribery now? You can't just help me because it would be a nice thing to do for a – for a friend? Forget it Shawn. Just forget it." She turned to leave him in the darkened hallway alone, but he grabbed her arm to stop her from leaving.

"Hey, cut it out. I wasn't serious, I was just – Forget about it. Come here." She wasn't prepared and gasped slightly as he cupped his palm over her bruised cheek. His brow furrowed in concentration. His body shook and hers responded, yet when he took his hand away the bruise remained. He pursed his lips and looked closely at her face, confused. Again, he placed his hand over the mark. He shuddered violently, concentrating all his force on healing her wound. He was called abruptly back to reality by her short yelp of pain as he pressed too firmly on the still vivid mark.

Shawn had never been unsuccessful in his healing efforts before, at least never for something as superficial as a bruise, and his inability to help Claire left him shaken. "I can't heal that."

For a moment, he thought he saw tears building in her eyes, but she shook her head abruptly and batted his hand away from her face. "I didn't think you could." She smiled, but she couldn't hide the sadness behind it. "I have to go."

"Claire – wait! What's going on?"

"Shawn, please don't ask me that."

"You can't just show me something like that and leave out any sort of explanation. I want to help goddamnit!" What was Jordan doing to her?

She smiled thinly. "You tried to help and you can't. Never mind Shawn, it's not your problem." Couldn't she tell by the way he was looking at her that he had made it his problem?

"Claire –" She continued down the steps to the Center's main floor, not turning to acknowledge his call.

What was it Jordan had told him that first day? That the composition of his experiments wasn't what mattered, just their results? He bunched his hands angrily into fists at his sides as he turned abruptly, forgetting the first key lecture, and headed toward Jordan's office. Armed with a consequence neither Claire nor Jordan could deny, he went to confront the man who had been the closest thing to a father figure in his life since his falling out with his once-favorite uncle, Tommy.

He burst into the office startling Joan, who had taken Claire's place at the reception desk again that day. "Mr. Farrell. Er, Mr. Collier is not seeing anyone at the moment, but if you'd like to take a seat – "

He ignored her protests and headed straight for the inner door. Jordan sat alone at his desk, and looked up in surprise as Shawn entered.

"Shawn, what can I do for you?" He stood, slowly.

"Cut the crap Jordan. I want to know what you're doing to her." He resisted the urge to leap across the desk and attack Jordan, pulling the life from him with a single touch.

"I'm sorry?"

"To Claire! What are you doing to her?"

"Claire?" Jordan maintained nonchalance. "Oh, I didn't realize you two had become friends."

"Stop it! I didn't come here for a chat, Jordan, I want to know what your experiments are doing to her."

Jordan actually chuckled. "Shawn, I keep telling you, the particulars are of no importance." He stopped Shawn's heated protest with a wave of his hand. "What is important is that we are seeing results."

"Results?" Shawn eyed Jordan warily. "What do you mean?"

"Well frankly, since the two of you are such close friends, I suggest you ask her." Shawn was sure he was mistaken when he thought he heard hints of jealousy in Jordan's tone. "Now Shawn, if you don't mind, I have some rather important papers to sort through here."

Jordan was dismissing him. He had come there with every intention of beating Jordan to a pulp to punish him for hurting Claire and to exorcise his frustration at being left out of their dealings together, but he found himself standing almost calmly across the desk from the man he so desperately wanted to harm. He couldn't hurt Jordan, because Jordan was every bit as much the savior to him as he was to Claire. He had given Shawn a home when his own family rejected him out of fear and misunderstanding. Under Jordan's tutelage, Shawn had transformed from a brooding adolescent into a responsible adult in the remarkably short space of a year and a half. Yet his sense of gratitude wasn't what stopped Shawn from taking out his anger on his mentor; the fact was, Shawn still believed in what Jordan was trying to do at the Center. He didn't understand why Jordan felt he needed to hurt Claire in order to accomplish his goals, but he still saw the importance in those goals. He turned slowly to leave the office, willing to give Claire the chance to explain for herself the experiments he had been so uninterested in mere weeks before.