Hello everyone! This is the longest chapter, eight pages guys!

Special thanks to Superior Tennyson go check out his story My Name is Fenris if you haven't already! And of course to CrazyCaz I think you will like this chapter for a certain reason. (No, spoilers! Sorry.)

Now, that's enough out of me, on with the story!

Chapter 10 No Secrets

Flashback four years ago (Clarice had not disappeared yet) John

Phoenix, Arizona

John and several of the veterans wanted to help those who had lost someone in 7/15 disaster whether they were a human or a mutant. So, with some help from Clarice they were able to get everything set up pretty quick. She had to leave soon after because she had to get to work with a kiss she's gone and his marine buddies all smirk and laugh. John just shakes his head grabbing a clipboard as people started walking the streets.

"Hi, ma'am. I'm a mutant veteran who served in Afghanistan. My father served in the Gulf before me. A lot of men I led were injured there. But right now, we're trying to raise money for victims of the 7/15 disaster. So, anything you could do, I'd appreciate. My father'd appreciate. We'd all appre-" John is cut off by the older woman.

"Maybe some other time." She says then walks way.

John sighs.

"You're raising money for Dallas? Is this a joke?" Some random guy asks as he walks over to the table looking at the flyers.

"A joke? No, it's not a joke. It's for people affected by the 7/15 incident." John says shaking his head.

The man picks up the flyer and crumbles it up. "Affected by mutants. You got a lot of nerve. You attack this country, and now you ask for money?" He tosses it at John it hits him in the chest, but he didn't feel it. The man then walks away.

John clutches his fists on the clipboard that he's holding and it bends. "Hey, I defended this country! All right? I served two tours! You have any idea how many of us died over there?" John's friend Thomas comes over.

" John, John, forget about him." Thomas says. "Can you believe this? This guy's blaming us for what happened." John says shaking his head. "Hey, he's an idiot. Don't let it get to you." Thomas says giving him a pat on the back. John nods then he hears tires screeching in the distance. His eyes widen. "What is it?" Thomas asks. "Get everyone away from the street." Thomas nods and starts shout at people to get back.

"Everyone away!" John says as he ushers a mother and her son away from the street. The guys in the truck throw a bomb on the sidewalk and speed away. John quickly runs to it and tosses it over into another lot. "Get down!" He grabs the blonde woman putting his hand over her head just as the bomb goes off causing a small explosion with some derby flying every which way. John catches a part of a car in his bare hand and looks around. His friend Thomas helping a woman who had fallen and all the screaming, helping the blonde woman to her feet. She thanks him and walks away.

"I think it's time we go." John's former commanding officer says. With a nod they all pack up. Then they clean up the derby and place the broken pieces in the trashcan. They all get in their cars and head home. When John pulls up he sees Clarice's car in the driveway. Something is wrong, he quickly gets out of his car and into the apartment. He finds his girlfriend sitting on the old couch her jade eyes puffy from crying.

"Clarice, hey what's wrong?" He asks as he walks over and places her on his lap. "I got laid off. That asshole of a boss just told all the mutant employees that they no longer have a job." She sniffs. "Did he tell you why?" He asks. "No, John what are we going to do?" She asks. "I'll figure something out." He says as he holds her closer. "I heard what happened on the news was anyone hurt?" She asks. "No, I promise I made sure of it." He says giving her a kiss on the cheek. "Good." She says as she rests her head on his broad shoulder. "Your dad would be proud." He gives a small smile.

End of flashback...

Mutant Underground

John sits at his desk looking at the photo of him and his dad. He looks up when Marcos knocks on the door. "Hey. Am I interrupting?" John shakes his head putting the photo in his pocket. "No, I was just thinking." Marcos nods. "I called around about Pulse. Now, nothing firm, but there are rumors of mutants hunting other mutants for Sentinel Services. Pulse may not be the only one." John rubs his temples. "We are barely staying ahead of humans. If they turn us against each other, we're done. Anything more about the Federal Building in Baton Rouge?" Marcos nods. "Yeah. I checked it out. Major mutant justice center for the Southeast. Reed Strucker worked with a judge there, so, the guy might have info on the program. If we can get in, we might be able to figure out what the hell's going on." John raises a brow. "You mean break in?" Marcos shrugs. " Well, they're not exactly gonna roll out the welcome mat for us. Look, John, I know this isn't how we usually do things, but-" John puts a hand up to stop him. "I don't care. What they did to Pulse, they changed their game. Maybe it's time we changed ours." With that he gets up leaving Marcos and goes to find Clarice.

He finds her in the back vault sitting on the old red couch petting Zingo. He walks in and leans against the vault door. "Clarice. There's a Federal Building in Baton Rouge that we need to get into. I know it's a lot to ask, but we think there might be information in there about Sentinel Services and what they did to Pulse." He says. She rolls her jade eyes and gives a slight nod. "So, is that all? That's all we need to talk about? You need the 411 on your old Marine buddy, so I just blink you into a building? I'm just a portable door-maker?" John scoffs. Clarice stands up. "Fine if you're not gonna bring it up, I will. Your friend Dreamer stuck a memory in my head without mentioning it to me or, I don't know, asking my permission. A memory that I'm sure you're familiar with because it's a memory of you."

John sighs. "All right. I'm sorry. I asked her not to do that, but-" She cuts him off. "But when she did, you decided not to say anything about it." She glowered at him. "It was an emergency. She did it to save the team. And afterwards, we still needed your help." As soon as the words left his lips he knew he was in the wrong. "Oh. Ah, I get it. You didn't want to tell me because you wanted to use me. FYI, you're not making this any better. I've got my own issues to sort out. My own people to find." She turns and goes to sit back on the couch. "Hey. Maybe-maybe I can help you do this." He kneels on the ground next to her. She shakes her head. "I'm not asking for your help. I just want to know. When we were working together in the warehouse and we were alone the way you looked at me. Was that real?" Yes! It is! Tell her John! "Um, it's complicated." He settles on with a nod. You jackass! You know that's not true!

Clarice looks down with a sigh. "Well, lucky you. I'm gonna help make this a lot less complicated." She gives Zingo one last scratch behind the ears before standing and walking past him. Zingo whimpers. "Clarice come on." John stands and almost bumps right into her. "You know, when I got captured by Selene I at least knew I was being used." Then she storms out and makes a portal. "Clarice!" John hurry's out of the vault to catch her, but it's too late she was already gone, leaving a few papers flying in her wake. John lets out a frustrated sigh then punches the vault door leaving a dent. Marcos comes to get him once he calms down.

He follows him to meet up with Lorna, Reed, Sonia, Shatter and Sage. All waiting in the second-floor all standing around a table, while most of them, Lorna is sitting on the edge.

"Listen, everybody needs to understand something here. This isn't just about hiding mutants anymore. We are taking the fight to the enemy now. It's a matter of survival. Reed, can you tell us about this building?" John asks as he looks at Reed who's on his left.

With a shake of his head Reed says. "I wish I knew more. Some of my cases were transferred to Baton Rouge. There's a judge there, James Kresge. He dealt with most of my cases."

"And how many folks you prosecuted disappeared through this place?" Shatter asks with his arms crossed.

"It was rare. All they told me was that some of my cases were being prosecuted under a special federal program." Reed says.

"And you never asked for more information why?" Shatter asks clearly getting upset.

"We're not debating this. Look, what matters now is getting those files. If Clarice can get us in, then-" Marcos is cut off.

"That's not an option. Clarice, uh she left. She's gone." John says and looks right at Sonia.

"What, she just left? Why would she do that?" Lorna asks.

"It doesn't matter. We need another solution." Sonia says. John shakes his head.

"I could try to get us into the back of the building." Marcos suggests

"That's reinforced concrete. Cutting through this is gonna take at least half an hour." John says.

"Then I'll have to do it a lot faster." Marcos says with a shrug.

John shakes his head. "It's not possible."

"I can get us through." John and everyone else look to see Andy. "Andy." Reed says. "What? It's a wall. I can handle a wall, no problem." Andy says with a shrug."You and I should talk about this when-" Andy cuts his dad off. "Are we really gonna do this again? Talk about how only the adults can do anything? You said it yourself. It's a matter of survival, right? Yeah, so, if the Sentinel Services did track us down, the kids would be just as screwed as the adults, if not more. I can get us through that wall quicker than anybody else here. It's time you let me fight."

John looks at Reed. With a defeated sigh he agrees. Andy smiles and races off to go tell his mom and sister, Reed follows. Sage and Shatter go back to work. Marcos is going with Reed and Andy so he moves to leave with Lorna right beside him.

"Hey, Marcos, Lorna hold on a sec." John says they turn around.

"What's up?" Marcos asks.

John looks at Sonia. "Are you going to tell them? Or should I?"

"Johnny, it's not that important." Sonia says.

Lorna crosses her arms over her chest. "Well, one of you had better start talking Marcos has to leave in a few hours. So, spit it out."

"Fine, the reason why Clarice left is because Sonia planted a memory of me in her head. And she didn't tell her, so Clarice found out on her own." John says his arms crossed.

"Wait, so when you said that I should thank Sonia?" Marcos didn't even need to finish he sentence because John was already nodding.

"Sonia, why did you do this?" Lorna's voice was deadly calm.

Sonia rolls her eyes. "Johnny, Marcos, and the Struckers needed to get back without dropping bodies. I did what I had to do to get them back safely."

"Yeah, but that doesn't mean you don't tell her!" Lorna says.

"They needed help!" Sonia says glaring at John.

"Yeah, we did. But Clarice was nowhere near ready to do something like that. You put John in her head just so you could save him. And yeah, you gave her the confidence to get the job done, but now she knows that it wasn't the training that helped her. Walker and Eve were the same. And they hardly even went on any supply runs. And they left just like Clarice did." Marcos says.

"I was helping them." Sonia says.

Lorna shakes her head. "Helping lower their self-esteem? Sonia, that's not helping."

Sonia glares at her best friend. "Johnny knew, but he didn't tell her."

"Because, it wasn't my job. You did this even after I told I didn't want to take any shortcuts on training Clarice. Yes, I get that it was an emergency, but she had the right to know. You evaded her mind without her permission. And then you tell me that if she would have said no, you would have forced it on her anyway." John says.

"John, you don't get a pass. If you knew you should have told her. As a leader you shouldn't have kept this from her." Lorna says her voice still calm.

"Look, we don't have time for this. I have to go." Marcos says leaving them with Lorna sending both John and Sonia a disappointed look she follows her man. John shakes his head and leaves a Sonia knowing that they both need to cool off. He goes downstairs to watch and listen in with Sage.

Soon it's time for Marcos, Reed and Andy to leave. When they were gone he started putting up huge blocks of concrete on the outside to offer up some protection. His senses pick up when he places the next block on top of the other.

"Lorna." He turns around.

"Don't, John. I'm not the one you need to apologize to." She says her arms crossed.

"I know." He says.

"Why did you let this happen? Did that memory that Sonia place in your head stop you from doing the right thing?" Lorna asks.

John shakes his head. "No, it wasn't that memory faded a couple years ago."

"Did it?" With that she walks away.

Shaking his head, he picks up another block of concrete and places it down next to the other two. His mind wonders back.

Flashback two years ago...

Mutant Underground

"Hey, John. We got a new batch of refugees." Shatter says as John walks out of his office. He nods to his friend and heads down to meet them.

This was nothing new, they always help mutants in need and it added to their numbers of friends and allies. John notice a woman with bright red hair struggling with some of the boxes that were being brought in. He moves quickly, taking them from her before they fell.

"Let me help." John says the woman blushes. He carries the boxes to an empty space with the red-head had clearly claimed for herself.

"Thank you, my name is Sonia Simonson." She holds her hand out.

He shakes it. "I'm John Proudstar." He releases her hand not hearing her gasps as he leaves.

A few months later they run into each other or more accurately she runs into him literally. Before she falls he instinctively places his hands on her waist to steady her. He lets go when she's standing straight. With a small nod he continues on his way to Marcos they had to go on a supply run.

After they get back John is in his office sorting out bills and some new information about his friend Pulse. Sonia makes her way into his office with a shy smile.

"Is something wrong?" He asks not sure why she's looking at him like that. "Um, I just wanted to talk." She says. John nods he motions for her to sit in the chair across from his desk. "What is it?" He asks once she's seated. "I noticed that you were gone for several hours last night and I wanted to make sure, you were okay." She says not looking at him. "Yeah, I'm fine. I just was trying to track down a friend of mine and her trail lead me to a trailer park and then it went cold." John says with a sigh. All he wanted to do was find his girlfriend.

Sonia stands, walking over and standing behind him. She places her hands on his shoulders and begins to massage them. This would have been exactly what John needed, but not from her. He closes his eyes and for a moment he lets himself enjoy it. Then his senses pick up a scent of roses and some pink smoke for a short minute he zones out. Images of him and Sonia flooded his mind. When he comes out of whatever the heck that was and finds Sonia sitting on his lap. She gives him a wink before getting up and leaving the room. He only takes a few seconds before following her to 'space.'

They start dating after that night and for six months John is fairly happy. That is until he doesn't see him and Sonia in the dreams he has it's some other man with more tattoos the John would ever get, that is if he could. Shaking his head, he goes to find Marcos and Lorna only to find Lorna in what seems to be a rather heated conversation.

"What did you do to John?" Lorna asked her hands clutched. "I don't know what you mean?" Sonia says confused. "Don't play that bullshit with me. I know what your powers are and you're the only one that's been with John all this time." Lorna says rolling her eyes. "Johnny and I have just been doing what you are Marcos do." Sonia replies with a shrug. "Right, and that involves you messing with his head so that you would be with you?" Lorna says crossing her arms. Wait she planted memories in my head to get me to be her boyfriend? Clarice, I have wasted six months of being with Sonia and not out looking for her.

John came into view, not that he needed to hide, he just wanted to see Sonia's reaction to his presence. Just like he thought she looked like a deer caught by headlight. Shaking his head, he walks away and outside. He hears Sonia following him, but he ignores her.

"Johnny-" He cuts her off. "Don't. Don't act like you are the victim when that's me. Why did you do it?" He asks. "You were always busy. I wanted to get to know you, and eventually be with you." She says taking a step closer to him. "By, planting a fake memory of me and you when it was really you and your ex. I thought you were a pretty decent person, but I think you just showed me who you really are." He keeps moving towards his car and without looking back he gets in driving away. A few hours later he's back at the Underground and Sonia is sitting on the couch waiting.

"So, am I being sent to another station?" Sonia asks her arms crossed. "No. Your power will be useful for security purposes." He says. "So, what now?" John knows what she's asking. "I think we should end it. I'm going to be honest I never liked you like that. There is no point of us being together, when we have an actual job to do." From that day on they stayed as friends from that day on.

End of flashback...

"Maybe a little to the left." Sonia says. "Figured it was time we started thinking about reinforcing this place." John says moving the huge block over some. "So, you never told me, how did your conversation go with Clarice?" John places another block down with a huff. "She left. So, I'd say not well. It's about par for the course these days." He says wiping his brow. "If you're talking about Pulse, that wasn't your fault." Sonia says shaking her head. "How do you figure that? I left him. I let Sentinel Services take him."

"You thought he was dead." Sonia says. "I was wrong. I should've saved him. I'm starting to think that maybe the X-Men made a mistake Choosing me to be part of the underground." John says looking at the ground. "Johnny, you can't think that way. I know you want to live up to who your father was, but you're doing all you can." Sonia says trying to reassure him. "It's not enough. We have more refugees in there than we can possibly save. I can barely protect a bunch of veterans." He says shaking his head. "You were chosen for a reason. The X-Men said a war is coming." Sonia says. "They didn't say we'd win." With that he walks away heading back inside to shower and change.

He picks up his burner answering the call only to find out another refugee station was hit. He goes downstairs to find Sage. She's monitoring the screens with Shatter close by. " Hey. Just got word from HQ in Alpharetta."

"What happened they get hit?" Shatter asks.

"Yeah. They managed to get about half of their people out. They're on their way here now." John says

"Here? We're already over capacity by at least 78%." Sage says.

"Yeah, well, that number's about to get a lot worse. Guys, I'm sorry. We don't have a choice here. We need to do something. We got to find space for 'em." John says.

"Okay." Sage says.

"You got it." Shatter nods they both leave to do just that.

John sighs as he sits on a desk.

"Hey. Are you alright?" Sonia asks. "Yeah. Yeah I'm alright." John says looking at her. "How'd it go with Marcos in Baton Rouge?" Sonia asks. "They got what they went there for." John says. "Without Clarice? I guess not everything requires a portal." Sonia says. "What you did what we did to her, it was wrong." John says. "Was it? Because it saved lives." Sonia says. "We kept the truth from her." John says shaking his head. "If we had told her earlier, she would have left earlier, and people would have died. Johnny it's okay. It's okay that you made it out and Pulse didn't. You have to keep moving forward." Sonia say wrapping her arms around his neck leaning in. "We can't do this." John says pulling back. "Why not? Because-because we're in a war? That just means all we have is here and now." She leans in again and John removes her arms from his neck. "Sonia, stop." His burner rings. "It's Marcos." Sonia looks as though she going to cry nods and walks away.

"Where are you?" John asks. "We're almost back." Marcos says. "That's good." John says. "Yeah, I'm not so sure, it is." Marcos says.

"He's still there. Two cars back." John hears Andy say.

"We've had a cop trailing us the last couple miles. No sirens, but something doesn't feel right. Has anything come up on the scanners?" Marcos asks. John looks at the scanners. "No. Nothing."

"He's on his radio." Andy says.

"Check the traffic agency public notices to see if there's any directives to avoid Buford Highway." John moves a few steps and types in what Reed had asked. "Is there anything?" Reed asks. "Uh, Yeah. Yeah there is." He hears Marcos sigh on the other end before he hangs up.

John closes his burner and goes to find Caitlin, Lauren, and Lorna. "They're heading straight into a police ambush. We think it'll happen here." John says as he points to the spot on the map.

"Why can't they just go somewhere else?" Lauren asks.

"There's no place to go. They're hemmed in." John says.

"How did this happen? I thought they got away. I-I thought that-" Caitlin gets cut off.

"The cops stopped them on the way up there. They didn't find anything, but the driver said he was going to Denver, so, when the tollway cameras in Baton Rouge spotted them." Lorna trailed off.

"Well, how do we get them out of there? We can't just leave them." Caitlin says.

"Wes can help. You saw him at training. He can make illusions, mirages, if they need to get away from the police." Lauren says.

Lorna nods. "That could work. I'll go get him." She moves to leave.

"I want to go, too. If it doesn't work out, you'll need me." Lauren says. Lorna looks at Caitlin for a response.

"Go. Go, before I change my mind." Caitlin says. Lauren smiles at her mom then follows Lorna out.

Once everyone is back John and Sage start going through the hard drives and see how the procurers work for the 'Hound' Program and all the mutants that have been tested on. Taking several files to his office he goes through them to see if anyone else that they know is in the files. Sonia joins him for a while and they sit in silence. She leaves after a few hours and John stays up a bit longer, before going to bed. His mind wonders to Clarice hoping that she's somewhere safe right now.

Somewhere in Georgia...

Clarice walks down some steps as she turns a corner and finds a decent place to sleep. She hadn't found much about that place she was trying to portal back to, but she wasn't about to give up.

Hey, so let me know what you thought about this chapter. So, just to clarify John and Clarice were living in Phoenix for the past four years. Was John an idiot for not telling Clarice the minute he knew? Is Sonia really all that good? You'll have to wait and see! Until next time...