The next morning, I woke up with my head on Victor's bare chest and my left arm draped across his stomach. I slowly rolled my head off to look for a clock. I found one and groaned. It was only 7:30 am. I was not a morning person. I rolled back to Victor and snuggled closer. He stirred and put and arm around me, but also groaned when he saw the clock. "I have to get up," he said groggily.

"No you don't," I answered, muffled by his chest. He chuckled and the vibration was soothing to my starting to ache head. He gently removed me and slid out of bed and into clothes. I rolled over, pulling the covers up to my neck in the process. "Why do you have to get up?"

"I've gotta go get your stuff."

"It's 7:30 in the morning!"

"I have an assignment too."

I opened my eyes and softly glared. "How old is this one?"

"Elena, please. You know…"

"That you enjoy hunting more than anything in the world…and that you're required to do it for the adamantium. Sorry. I just hate…so many things. Ugh." I pulled the covers over my head.

He slid his jacket on, then sat on the side of the bed to lace up his boots. When he had, he pulled the covers off my head. "I know your feeling on it all, Elena. I respect them, but you might change your mind when you get back in the game."

I sighed, "It's not a game, Victor."

He just cocked his head and asked, "Isn't it?" I opened my mouth to respond, but he cut me off with a vicious kiss. "I'll be back later," he said against my lips. He got up and went out the door.

I stared at it as it closed and yelled, "Don't forget anything!"

"Got it!" he answered. I grinned and pulled the covers over my head again.

I woke up again about 5 hours later. There was a pile of bags in the middle of the floor and a note on the bedside table. I rubbed my eyes and grabbed the note. 'She's 16. Her mutation has something to do with ice. I'll be back as soon as I can. Stay out of trouble. Victor. PS: hope you can stand the clothes. Wasn't sure what you wanted.' With a huff, I forced myself out of bed and over to the pile of bags and took inventory. Jeans, blue and black, a pair of black army boots, a pair of black Goth boots, bunches of socks both black and white, black t-shirts, black wife-beaters, a red hoodie…I took a double-take. Red? Where did the color scheme go? I could just picture Victor smirking as he picked out the damn thing. I shook my head, a grin splitting my face as I moved to the last bag. Bras and underwear, but under that was a beautifully bad-ass black leather jacket. My jaw dropped. "NO WAY!" I shrieked. I yanked it out to examine it closer. It was biker jacket-like which suited me perfectly. I jumped around in girly glee for a minute before getting dressed. I donned all the proper undergarments, some black jeans, a black wife-beater, the Goth boots, and my jacket.

My stomach growled, so I headed towards the kitchen. When I got there, I looked around. It was small, but it was sort of cute…sort of. I opened the fridge completely prepared to find almost nothing, and was totally proved wrong. It was pretty well stuffed to capacity with stuff. Granted, some of it needed to be thrown out, but kudos for effort. I found a carton of blueberries and totally went ballistic over them. I loved blueberries. Once I had devoured those, I looked for something a little more substantial. There was some chicken that looked like it about to get non-edible, so I ate that to save it from spoiling. I couldn't get sick anyway.

After I had quelled my hunger, I wandered around the building and eventually up to the lab. There were some nurses doing some things around a computer, and Stryker was reading a file. He looked up and nodded in my direction, but said nothing. I looked around at the brightly lit, sterile smelling room, feeling a little intimidated, but I didn't let it last long. I walked in farther, observing the frozen bodies in tanks along the wall. It disgusted me, but I said nothing. Then, my eyes fell on a body on a table. I slowly walked up to the side and looked down at the shock of pretty brown hair on the head. My eyes traveled down to the familiar face, and before I knew it, tears were spilling over. "Wade," I choked.

Stryker walked over. "An unfortunate circumstance. Did you know he had terminal cancer? I promised to cure it…and I did."

"By turning him into a mindless killing machine?!"

"Well…it got the job done."

"You are sick, Stryker! SICK!" I spun on my heel and marched out. I dashed down the stairs and into the room with the cages. I ran to my sister's and fell to my knees crying my eyes out. "Nesha, I'm so sorry! I'm so sorry!" I sobbed. She knelt behind the bars and stuck her fingers through. I reached up and touched them. "Nesha…"

"Shh. Sh, Elena. It's ok. Sh." I cried until I could cry no longer.

"Nesha, I hate this. I hate what I have to do. I hate what's happening here. And I hate that I'm a part of it. But I can't just run away this time. It's not that simple. Wade's not around to protect you anymore, and I feel so guilty about that."

"Oh, Elena, that's not your fault."

"It's my significant other's fault and is, therefore, my fault also. Please, forgive me, sister."

"I never blamed you for that. It's just that you have forgiven Victor so easily for everything. Not just the recent stuff, but always. Ever since we met the brothers."

I rubbed the left over tears from my eyelashes. "Tell me something, Nesha. How easily did you forgive Wade?" She said nothing. "You see my point. You couldn't stay mad wit him, could you?"

"No," she answered quietly.

"I can hardly expect you to forgive Victor as I do. I would never ask you to. I just want you to understand why I do."

"I understand. I do. It was the same for me and Wade."

I met her eyes. "Thank you, Nesha. You're the best younger sister in the world."

"And you're the best older sister in the world."

"Oh, you two are so sweet together," Victor called while dragging a limp body into a cage, dropping her and locking it behind him as he came out. I scowled at him. He saw and rolled his eyes. "I'm just kidding, Elena."

"Just kidding my foot," I said under my breath. He squinted at me and all I could do was burst into laughter. Even Nesha chuckled if only to lighten the mood.

Victor stared at us, totally bewildered. "I fail to understand why you are laughing."

"Me too," I said, unable to keep a straight face. I leaned against Nesha's cage, laughing so hard it hurt. Nesha had plopped down and was laughing just as hard as I was.

Victor's eyes were all squinty with confusing and his mouth was slightly open as if shocked. That made me laugh all the harder. He shook his head muttering, "Sisters. Put 'em in the same room together and suddenly you find that you don't understand anything anymore." He left as Nesha and I laughed at his retreating back.

Once we had calmed down and regained our breath, I said, "You know, I think Victor is intimidated by us together."

"What do you mean?"

"He just doesn't know what to think, and I believe that scares the hell out of him."

She smiled. "You really love him, don't you?"

"Yeah. I do. No one else for 40-odd years."

"Despite his, um, escapades…"

"Vietnam," I said while clearing my throat.

"…that and others since you left."

"I figured. I'm not too worried about it right now. I don't feel like fighting."

"I didn't finish my earlier sentence. Despite his escapades, I know…I just know he loves you too. All that stuff after you left, that was his way of getting revenge. I think he expected it to make him feel better, knowing he was hurting you, even if you didn't know it."

"Yeah? How'd that work out for him?"

"He felt worse every time. Eventually, we all just learned to stay away from him whenever he came back from running solo."

I grinned. "I though as much. He's so stubborn. Half the time he hurts himself worse than me. Who am I to stop him?"

"Exactly!"

"Exactly. Oh, do you get fed in this prison?"

"Crappy shit, but yeah, we get fed."

"I'll see if I can sneak you something."

"Don't get yourself in trouble, Elena."

"Stryker never said anything about whether I could bring you food or not. He can't get me on anything."

She shrugged. "Ok. Just be careful around that man. He's a slick one."

"Don't I know it! I'll visit again."

"You'd better," she called as I walked out.

I spent the next few days in the same manner. Waking up, being bored, visiting Nesha, being bored, eating something, being bored, going to bed. By the end of the week, I was going mad. Even Victor noticed when he came in the door one evening and found me pacing the perimeter of the room. "Elena, what the hell are you doing?"

"Expending energy, damn it! I've been locked up in this building for a week, nothing to do but stare at dank, empty walls. What would you expect? I have to get out of this place for at least a while!" I ran up to him and grabbed his shoulders. "Please, Victor! Get me out of here somehow!"

He gently removed my hands and held them in his own. "I'll talk to Stryker." He kissed my cheek and jogged up the stairs to the lab. I was quivering with the need to run, to exhaust myself. The energy had pent up within me and it was about to burst loose.

About 10 minutes later, Victor returned. "Well?!"

"He said you can go on the next hunt with me."

"Who are we hunting?"

"Some teenage boy in a town about 50 miles from here."

"Can we run there?"

"So eager?"

"I'm up for anything at this point. Even hunting down little dweebs for my worst enemy."

Victor gazed at me, realization dawning on his face. "That's why he kept you cooped up for so long."

"Well, whatever. It worked. I don't care what I have to do to get out of here. Just get me out!"

"We leave tomorrow."

"UGH!" I groaned, bouncing on the balls of my feet.

"I have on idea." He ran off, and when he came back he had 2 pairs of boxing gloves. He handed one to me and put the other on.

"This is your idea of an idea?"

"Come on, babe. Dance with me a little bit. Get some of the energy out."

"You're serious?"

"I've never been more serious."

I slid the gloves on and moved a little closer to him. "I've never boxed before."

"Oh, yes, you have! You just didn't have gloves that time and it was me who felt the absence of them."

"When?"

"Your birthday, 1971."

I though back and smiled widely as the memory resurfaced. "Oh yeah! Good times!"

"That makes one of us." Out of the blue, I punched him square in the jaw. He took a deep breath and grinned at me. "Let's get this party started!"

"Come on, big guy! Let's see what you got!" We spun around each other, blocking, striking, uppercutting, twisting, turning, sweating. Finally, after a vicious blow to the gut which left me double over, I held up a hand. "Alright! I think I've worn myself out now. Not completely, but enough to survive until tomorrow."

Victor walked up and knocked me lightly on the head with his glove. "You did good, Elena. Never boxed before. Ha."

I grinned up at him. "It's just my natural fighting instinct. If someone is hitting me, I hit them back…and when it's you, I try to be fair."

"When it's me," he laughed.

"Only you…and maybe Nesha."

"Just maybe?!" Nesha cried from her cage in the other room.

I laughed. "More than likely! Is that better?!" She didn't respond. I chuckled and wrapped my arms around my love's torso. I took a deep breath, letting his scent seep into my nose, musky and familiar. "Oh, I love you," I sighed. "I love you, I love you, I love you."

He entwined his fingers into my hair, holding my head to his chest. He kissed me softly on the top of my head and murmured into my hair, "Elena, I love you to. I may not tell you enough…or at all…but I do. Know that." I burrowed as close to him as I could physically go, savoring his warmth. Before I knew it, I was dropping off to sleep. Victor chuckled warmly as he lifted me up into his arms and carried me to our room. He laid me on the bed, and started to tug off my boots and slide my arms out of my jacket. Once he had successfully done so, he tucked the covers up around my neck and leaned in very close to my ear. "Elena?"

"Hmm?" I answered, half awake.

"If I asked you to marry me, what would you say?"

"Maybe later," I mumbled, only ¼ aware of what was going on.

He laughed and kissed my ear. "That works…for now. Sleep well. I'll wake you when it's time to go."

"Ok, Victor. Now shut the hell up."

"Sorry," he whispered as I faded into dreamland.