Thomas looked the scene over. "I'm sorry about that, I shouldn't have gotten carried away like."

"Don't worry about it," Scott answered, wincing a little as Jean tightened the bandage on his arm. One of the man had pulled out a knife when he hadn't been looking. "You two shouldn't have to hide who you are, especially not here, or anywhere else for that matter."

"We could have handled them you know," Henry said a he went from one downed man to the other, making sure none of them had any life threatening wounds.

"I know, but you seemed to be much more interested in kissing your boyfriend; and this way they can't say this was done to them by a couple of gays." He nudged the man lying at his feet. "Isn't that right, you were beaten up by a perfectly normal straight couple." The man whimpered, Scott had done quite a number on this one after he slashed his arm. He hadn't needed to use his power; Scott stayed in shape primarily through martial art and he had shown him how good he was. He hadn't broken anything major, but the man was going to be in pain for a while.

Henry checked on the leader, he didn't have any physical wounds, but he kept twitching. "What did you do to him Jean?"

Jean finished bandaging Scott's arm and then kissed him on the cheek. "I gave him some pretty horrible nightmares. I don't want him to ever think of doing something like this again. And don't worry Thomas, it isn't permanent, with proper therapy they should go away in oh . . . a decade or two."

Thomas shook his head slowly, "you know I should be writing you up for this, right? I hope you'll accept my thanks instead," and he kissed her cheek.

Henry stood and stretched, "well, everyone here is in relatively good shape, all things considered, so the next question is, are we calling the police?"

"We should, we were the ones threatened," Jean said, "we just defended ourselves."

Scott looked at the men lying on the ground. "If we do we risk having them play the gay card and some of the cops will probably be bigots. Thomas, you're the closest to the law we have here, I'll follow your lead."

Thomas thought about it. "Normally I'd say we call them in, but if we do, we're going to be here for hours, I'm tired and all I want to do right now is go home and show my man a good time." Henry's face lit up. "So I say we let them make the first move. Let them decide if they want to make a spectacle of being beaten up like this."

With that resolved they walked back to their cars, the only two left in the lot. They examined them and were slightly surprised to find them untouched.

It was Thomas who voiced the question they had as they stood in front of the cars. "So, who's driving who home?"

"I can drive Jean home," Scott offered, "That way you two can be at your place quicker."

Henry cleared his throat, "While I'm certain you have no ulterior motive, I don't think we should be putting your chivalrous nature to the test just this early in the relationship. I propose that I drive Jean home while Thomas drives you back."

"That works for me," Jean said, sensing that Henry had an ulterior motive, and that he felt it was important. She hugged Scott as she felt his disappointment. "Don't worry, this is only the first of many, many dates. You're going to have plenty of chances to show me just how much of a gentleman you are." She then kissed him passionately.

"So much for not kissing on the first date," Thomas commented.

Henry chuckled, "you haven't heard the phone calls these two have been sharing. If we let them share a car, I doubt they would make it out of the parking lot before ending up in the back seat."

This comment was rewarded by Scott flipping him the bird while he continued to kiss Jean.

"Isn't new love wonderful?" Thomas said trying not to laugh.

* * * * *

Henry drove at a sedate speed, not going above the speed limit. He wasn't in a hurry, Thomas had the longer distance to drive, and he wanted to be able to say what he had to without alienating Jean.

"You're going to have to be careful," He finally said.

"With what?" she answered. She could feel that he wasn't so much nervous as cautious.

"With the stuff you're going to learn from Scott."

"What do you mean?"

He sniffed the air to find out if she really didn't understand what he meant, she didn't. "There are some of Scott's project that don't exactly follow the Agency's agenda. If he were to find out that you'd revealed some of them he would be pretty angry."

"What? Are you insinuating that I'd go look through Scott's mind for illegal project?" She said, offended he could even think that.

"No, I'm not, but I can tell that you two share a pretty deep bond, you're bound to see things, and . . ." He stopped, trying find a better way to explain, "Look, when Thomas and I started going out, we were always talking about what we'd done, how our week had been. I'm certain he was circumspect in what he told me, but I would tell him everything. I even mentioned a project I was helping Scott with. It turned out that the Agency had a similar plan in the works. Thomas let them know what Scott was doing so they moved their time table forward.

"Scott was pretty angry when all his work turned out to be for nothing, but he was furious when he realized it was because I had told Thomas about it. Scott reamed me a new one on that day. I almost broke up with Thomas over that. Now I am more careful about the information I share with him." Henry looked at Jean for a moment, "I don't think you will have that luxury. Even without looking for anything, you will catch glimpse of projects Scott has. Unless you can make yourself forget, you will have to actively withhold information from the Agency."

Jean was silent while she thought it over, "well, unlike Thomas I'm not kept appraised of the active operations, unless an aspect of it involves me directly, so I probably wouldn't know if what I saw was important to the Agency, but even if I did it's still private knowledge, as a psychologist I deal with patient confidiality, so I'm used to having information I can't tell anyone."

Henry nodded, "What if they ask you to spy on Scott?"

"What? They would never do that. The Commander's not that kind of man. He wouldn't use my relationship with Scott in that way."

"I know he wouldn't want to, but he has to answer to his superiors; there's only so far he can bend the rules and so long he can ignore an order."

Jean looked down at her lap. "I don't know what I'd so if I received a direct order."

"I just want you to think about it so you aren't taken by surprise if they do ask."

* * * * *

As he expected Henry was the first one home. He left the car parked on the side of the street, no one would complain about it on a weekend, and went in. He turned on a few lights, but left them low. He then closed the blinds to maximize the amount of shadows in the house. He had a feeling Thomas would want to be in control.

He went to the den to get a book while he waited for his lover. As he reached for the one he wanted a shadow detached itself from the bookcase and wrapped around his wrist. He pulled against it, amazed as always, that it actually had substance to it. A second one wrapped around his other wrist and they pulled in opposite directions. He tried to pull free, but even with his enhanced strength he was unable to do so.

They lifted him in the air and two more took hold of his ankles, pulling him spread eagle. He gulped as he felt a shadow crawl up his leg, under his pants and moaned when it reached high enough. Shadows covered his mouth, silencing him.

Still spread he was turned around until he faced a darker shadow on the wall created by the door. A foot stepped out of it, pulling the shadow with it as if it was a plastic film, then a leg and a shadow covered silhouette. Henry recognized the form before the shadows parted to reveal Thomas.

"Hello lover," Thomas said in a smooth voice, "Ready for some good times?"

Oh yes, Thomas was definitely in control today.