Title: A Waterfall of Glass
Author: Catlin O'Connor
Disclaimer: Mutant X belongs to Marvel Studios, Tribune Entertainment etc. No infringement on copyright is intended.
Archive: Lists; anyone else, please ask first
Summary: "Maybe they would remember they were at Sanctuary, that they were safe."
Rating: PG13
Feedback: Would be greatly appreciated.
Notes: written while listening to Broken by Seether (CD: Disclaimer)
They'd planned it down to the last step - from injecting the guards with a carefully smuggled in poison to taking one of the vehicles in the lot and swopping cars till they were a few miles from Sanctuary. From there it was easy enough to walk the rest of the way, with a stop or two in between for water and to rest aching feet. Neither minded overly much; in the past three months they'd had wounds far worse than burst blisters and stomach cramps inflicted upon them.
Getting into Sanctuary itself was ridiculously easy, because they hadn't changed the access codes since they'd been gone and when they arrived, it was to the sight of Jesse and Shalimar and Adam eating dinner. Eating, as though nothing had changed.
As though the world hadn't reversed polarity and spun off into an altogether different orbit.
Shalimar noticed them first, and her bubbling laughter died, choked in her throat like a piece of stale bread.
Then she sprang to her feet, leaped the distance separating them. Jesse followed suit with a lunge of his own, and soon they were enfolded in arms and legs and babbling words. Three months, they said, but we knew you were alive! We knew it!
Three months and it felt like three years, and Shalimar and Jesse didn't seem to notice the stiff way the two held themselves, or that they didn't return the hugs or the endless stream of So good to see you's and Missed you so much's.
Adam, when he approached, was cautious, though his eyes were warm and said everything that Shalimar and Jesse already had, only it was magnified a thousandfold because he hadn't really said anything at all.
He tugged on Shalimar's arm and Jesse's hand and reluctantly they released their long-lost teammates. Adam gestured towards the table set with food, and asked, genially,
"Are you... hungry?"
And Emma almost laughed, and Brennan did, and the other three looked shocked, because surely they were, and they must have needed to eat.
"I could eat," Brennan acknowledged, and Emma nodded. At her acquiescence, he wrapped an arm around her waist and helped her to the table. "We'll eat on the sofa," he said, because there were no chairs at the table and hot food and a soft chair sounded like heaven right then.
Adam looked surprised, perhaps because what Brennan had said had been a statement of intent instead of a question. His expression said it all: obviously what they'd been through had changed them, made them, or Brennan at least, harder in some unseen way.
They filled plates and shuffled to the sofa like geriatrics wearing shoes two sizes too small, and they ate with three pairs of eyes trained of them, staring and waiting eagerly for them to finish so that they could explain and ease theirs fears and soothe their consciences.
It wasn't your fault, Emma and Brennan would say, we know you tried and couldn't find us. It's all right, it wasn't that bad, and it was only three months, right?
But they said nothing of the sort, and while neither condemned their friends, forgiveness for letting them go was a far more difficult task.
Finally, Emma set her plate aside and said, "I don't think I can remember it all accurately" - a genteel lie, as she could remember every second of every minute of every day in minute detail - "so you'll have to forgive any inconsistencies.
"We were taken - by the GSA, though I imagine you figured that out on your own - and shuffled around for... the first month, I think?" Brennan nodded, and she continued, "After that they sent us to an abandoned military base in the Midwest. I suppose they realized that they were safe, that no-one was coming after us, or at least hadn't been able to track us."
And the three winced in perfect symphony, a trio of pained comrades revealing that those hadn't been the most diplomatic words, and Brennan squeezed her hand when Emma shot him a quick look that was one-part distress, one-part anger.
"After that," Brennan said, picking up the dangling threads of the story, "well, it's not very interesting so I'll just skip right to the big escape scene. We managed to buy a syringe and a small vial of poison, enough to knock out two of the three guards, and when they were transporting us from the lab after... after." He cleared his throat. "I managed to use my powers briefly to disable Emma's subdermal governor, and she 'convinced' the remaining guard to remove the subdermals. We took care of the guard, changed into GSA uniforms and escaped in one of their cars."
He leaned back and Emma said, "We kept changing cars until we were a couple of miles from here and then we walked." She shrugged. "And that's it."
Questions came at them from all sides.
"You're okay?" Shalimar.
"And you weren't tracked here?" from Adam.
"Walked a couple of miles?" Jesse.
Emma raised a shoulder, let it drop, and said, "Well, we couldn't afford any other mode of transportation."
Jesse frowned. "But you said you bought poison... Where did you get the money?" he asked and she stared at him. Stared because, God, could anyone be that innocent?
Where do you think, she wanted to say, but held her tongue. He couldn't know what they'd been through, what was considered currency in the GSA containment camps. What she and Brennan had had to do in order to escape, to come back to this, to these people with their food-rounded cheeks and bright, oblivious eyes.
"We bartered," she said, and left it at that.
Jesse opened his mouth, but Adam shook his head and said, quickly, "I'm sure you're tired. We can talk about all of this tomorrow."
She and Brennan rose as one, and Adam led the way to their rooms, the same rooms they'd slept in before.
When they'd been undamaged enough to sleep.
When they'd been able to dream.
It was midnight when he gave up on attempting to sleep, and had just switched on a lamp to read when his door opened. He tensed, not sure if he was expecting a guard to storm through the door or Adam or Jesse or Shalimar with their Trust Me smiles and friendly words. He didn't know which option horrified him more, but he relaxed when he saw Emma slip into the room.
"I would've knocked," she said, "but if you had been asleep..." Her voice trailed off, but he knew what she meant. After months of not sleeping, having someone interrupt the first full night of it would be aggravating to say the least.
She stood in her long white nightgown, barefoot, fingers rumpling the edges of the sleeves. He considered her for a moment, because being impetuous wasn't a quality he had, or wanted, any more. It led to trouble, and pain, and thinking things through was easier all around.
Then he smiled, a brief twitch of lips, and lifted the covers.
She walked over, carefully, with slow, certain steps that sped into a near-sprint as she approached the bed. Emma sat on the edge of the mattress and swung her legs onto it. He smoothed the covers over her, reached across to switch off the light, hesitated. She lay still as a statue, and her eyes were open, staring at the ceiling as though she were merely waiting for light to break and would rather be in his company while she did so.
He touched her shoulder, and when she glanced over at him, hollowed cheeks barely brushing over the pillow, he said, "We're home now. We're safe."
Neither of them believed it, but she nodded and he tried to smile, because it may have been a simple platitude, but maybe platitudes would help them to remember that they were back in a world that said things like that to comfort.
Maybe they would remember they were at Sanctuary, that they were safe.
And if they repeated it often enough, to themselves, to each other, maybe they'd begin to believe it.
The book lay face down on the desk near the door, and Emma tapped the cracking spine, turned it over. "Tired of reading?" she asked, thumbing through it half-heartedly.
He lay in bed, was in fact always the first one in; she didn't come near the bed until he'd submerged beneath the quilt and had given her some sort of sign to join him. She didn't take it for granted, and he liked that she recognized that expecting things to remain the same just wasn't possible any more. But he was also aware that it wasn't simply for him, because she made nervous conversation and didn't touch him when they were in bed together.
"Of Walt Whitman," he answered, and she smiled. It was wobbly, true, but it was there, and it was real, and he thought that they were beginning, perhaps at last beginning, to relax a little.
"Is Edgar Allen Poe more your style?"
He thought about that, then said, testing, "Or Stephen King."
And when her smile came again, his own smile unbound and fell into her eyes.
He patted the spot next to him and she slid beneath the covers.
This time, when he turned off the light, he slipped his arm behind her head and lightly squeezed her shoulder. She stilled, then turned on her side and gazed at him until his arm prickled with pins and needles from the position and the pressure. Finally, she scooted closer and rested her head on his shoulder, then his chest.
He held her with painstaking care, and closed his eyes, waited for morning as he always did, but this time it was easier, because she was close, because they were together in the dark.
Because they were together.
She eased down onto the couch beside him, rested her head on the backrest and stared at the ceiling.
"Jesse asked if I wanted to train with him," Emma said at last, then fell silent.
He turned his head to look at her. "Ah," he said, because that explained her tightly drawn lips, her clenching and un-clenching fists.
Then she said, quietly, "He just doesn't get it. He keeps expecting things to be normal, like they were before, and they can't be. I can't be. I just," she swallowed, "I keep thinking that one day it'll be easier, one day I'll wake up and... things will be different, that they'll understand. And then one of them will say something like that, something so ordinary and I realize it's not going to happen. Today I thought that he should understand, because you do, you know why I do what I do without me having to tell you anything. And I know that's unfair, because he can't understand, because he hasn't been through what we both have, but he should, right? He should."
And she pressed a hand to her eyes and shuddered out a breath.
"Give them time. Give us time," he said, and she lowered her hand.
"It's been two months, Brennan. How much more time do we get?"
He had to force himself to stay where he was, to not get up and pace or tap his fingers against his leg. Not quite two months, he thought. Fifty-six days and counting, and it hadn't been nearly long enough. Not yet.
"I don't know. The other day," he paused, sorting through to find the right words, "I spoke to Adam. I told him I didn't know when I'd be able to go out with Mutant X again, and that... that I didn't know if I could deal with you going out with them, either."
Her hand slowly drifted over to touch his cheek, gingerly. "Me neither. You're the only person-" and she broke off, let her hand drop.
He sat up, brushed a fingertip over her arm. When she turned to face him, he gently cupped her face in his hands and leaned forward, pressed his lips to hers in a kiss that was as sweet as it was slow.
Tentatively, he deepened the kiss, letting his tongue press her lips apart, ease inside for a moment before withdrawing. Her hands slid into his hair, probably because it would be easier to break the connection of mouth to mouth, but perhaps also because she wanted the kiss to continue for just a little while longer.
He indulged them both with long, dreamy kisses that warmed and soothed, and when he parted from her, her eyes were closed, her lips curved into the first peace-filled smile he'd seen in almost five months.
He touched a strand of her dark hair and when her eyes opened, the blue of them washed away the thin film of sepia that had coated them both, like water over dust that clung to the skin and irritated the eyes.
His hand slid down her arm and he pressed his palm to hers, deliberately tangled their fingers together, and she locked her thumb over his, as though he'd extricate himself if she didn't. As though he'd let her go, he thought, and wanted to grin at that.
As though he ever would.
"We'll miss you," Shalimar said, her eyes glossy and brown and filled with the hope that they'd change their mind, that they'd rejoin the team and things would be as they were.
"Are you sure you don't want to join the underground? It isn't too late for me to make arrangements," Adam said, and Brennan shook his head.
"We feel safer on our own. Don't worry, we'll disappear somewhere." Become different people, he thought, though they already were.
Jesse said nothing, merely hugged Emma then Brennan and headed back inside. Brennan wrapped an arm around Emma's waist and they turned to leave, were halted by Shalimar handing him a book of poetry.
Walt Whitman, he saw, and knew it was a kind and thoughtful gesture, typical of who Shalimar was, and of who he had once been. He tucked the book into their bag, set it in the boot of the car Adam had procured for them.
He opened the passenger door for Emma and kissed her, as a reassurance to them both that they were doing the right thing. He pulled back and her lips were wet and swollen and he thought that even though he knew her as well as anyone did, she still managed to surprise him, because he'd convinced himself he knew what to expect, and now... the hot and punchy slam of desire into his gut made his breath catch, made her smile.
"Later," she whispered, and he could've sworn every muscle in his body tightened at the promise inherent in that one softly spoken word.
He made his way to the driver's side, tried to push thoughts of what would happen later to the back of his mind, because they made it difficult to walk, and driving for the next few hours with Emma sitting so close would be torture enough.
He got into the car, closed the door and unrolled the window to tell Adam one last thing.
"Goodbye," was the last word he spoke at Sanctuary, because there really wasn't anything more to say.
end