Hey guys, sorry it took me a little long to update, I just got home from San Diego Comic Con, and wow am I tired. But, I knew I owed you guys a chapter, so here it is, chapter 5! Hope you like it!

Disclaimer: I don't own Hellboy. If I did, I'd have been able to get into preview night as well as the rest of the Con.


About an hour after the medical response had taken Clay, Abe, and the body of the leather clad creature that Red had chased and found next to Clay, the room Abe had been in was emptied of water. The FBI had closed off part of the subway, claiming a water line had broken, making it easier to get more agents down there to destroy the eggs. Mouse had been left behind to help locate the eggs, and after the room had been drained, she and two other agents had dropped into the room.

Aside from the water on the walls, dripping from the ceiling, and the inch of water still left over on the floor, the room looked exactly as it had looked all the years before when it had been deserted. Mouse could hear an echo of an alarm sounding and the workers scrambling, trying to figure out what was wrong before they were ordered to leave the room and get to safety.

"Jesus." Agent Gould muttered as he looked around the room. Mouse stepped over a magazine from 1943 that had been floating around, and found herself staring at an old waterlogged black and white family picture in a picture frame. "I don't get how Fish-stick does it."

"Get out." Mouse turned around and stared at Agent Gould sharply.

"What?" he asked with a small chuckle. "You can't be serious." He frowned seeing the look on her face. "Mouse are you-"

"Get. Out." She snarled and he huffed in response before going to the ladder and climbing out.

"You didn't have to do that Mouse." Agent James mentioned and she shrugged.

"He didn't have to insult my friend." She replied simply making Agent James nod. She moved around a tiled pillar and put her hand on a machine as she stepped over a small grate on the floor that was still full of water.

As she touched the machine she could see Abe swimming by, his reliquary getting caught on the lever. She moved her hand to the lever, shutting her eyes, and could feel things, rather than seeing them happen. She felt Abe's feelings as the reliquary fell, rolling out of reach. She dropped to her knees and grabbed the grate before pulling it, one corner of it moved, and with the help of Agent James they were both able to pull it open. He shined a flashlight into the water, an she stuck her hand into it, shutting her eyes before her fingers brushed against the small glass container holding to bone of Saint Dionysius.

Mouse took off the silver cross necklace she usually wore and strung the bone onto the chain before slipping it back on and clasping it. "You feel anything?" Agent James asked and she shut her eyes, he grew silent before she felt it, a pulse, almost like a heartbeat. And then another. She followed the pulses before getting to a dark corner between two machines where a good thousand of little orange Sammael eggs were. "Agent James!" she called him over, her voice echoing off of the walls of the tiled room.

"We think the best thing right now would be to burn-" Mouse didn't listen to the end of the sentence, rather she just started stomping on the eggs.

"Mouse- as effective as that may seem, we have no way of knowing if it's helping-"

"Oh it's helping." she replied.

"Mouse," he insisted, "You keep that up, and you'll have to spend the night in quarantine." Mouse stopped instantly and he nodded.

"Burn 'em?" she asked and he nodded before a few more agents came down with large, what looked like flame throwers on their backs. She walked around the control room of a previous life while they burned the eggs, before inspecting the area for more. When she was satisfied there were none left she let them take her home.

When Mouse got home she went straight to her room and took her slimy, damp clothes off, before getting into the shower. Even after scrubbing her body until it was bright red she couldn't get the cold feeling she had gotten down there to go away. She shivered as she stood under her shower nozzle, spraying hot water down on her, before she got out of the shower and wrapped herself in a towel. After getting dressed she started to work on brushing her impossibly curly hair before sighing darkly. There was no way she could get the back, and there was only one person she knew who could fix it.

Mouse walked to the room she knew Liz was staying in since returning to the bureau- the same room Liz had returned to every other time she quit the bureau. She knocked on the door and a moment later Liz opened the door before sighing seeing it was Mouse. The two girls were quiet for awhile while Liz helped Mouse with her hair issue. It wasn't like how it had been before, when the two could talk about any and everything. So much had been left unsaid the last time Liz left, and now it was just awkward. "Wanna get out of here?" Mouse asked and Liz nodded before following her friend.

After grabbing a pair of clothes out of the large laundry room and changing into Agent Myers, Mouse shoved her own clothes into a backpack and the two girls walked to the front. After taking one of the bureau cars the girls found themselves at a McDonalds. Mouse turned back into herself before going into the bathroom and changing into her own clothes while Liz ordered and got themselves a table.

"I heard about Abe." Liz muttered and Mouse nodded.

"Yeah." She sighed.

"I'm so sorry." Liz put her hand over Mouse's and she smiled lightly. "Have you seen him?"

"Not yet, no." she replied.

"He would want to see you." Liz told her and she shook her head.

"Why would he want to see me? I'm the one who got him hurt in the first place." She muttered.

"Mouse, how could you have- You weren't even there-"

"Exactly!" Mouse nodded before their number was called. The girls got up and grabbed the bags of food before walking outside to a small park where some kids were playing basketball.

"You can't honestly think it's your fault Abe got hurt. He knew the risks of going down there."

"But if I could have gone with him-"

"If you'd have gone with him, you'd probably have been killed." Liz told her sharply as they both took their food from the bags.

"You know Myers has a thing for you." Mouse mentioned, changing the subject. She took a sip of her coke and then took a bite of her Big Mac.

"He told you that?" Liz asked.

"Didn't need to." She held her hand up.

"You've been practicing." Liz mentioned and Mouse smiled.

"Abe's been helping me." Mouse told her before clearing her throat. "I forgot to ask, how was your ride back in?"

"It was okay. Agent Myers asked me to go to coffee with him tonight."

"You gonna go?"

"Why not?"

"I've got a very big why not. A very big, very red, and very jealous why not."

"Red's going to have to learn to trust people if he wants them in his life." Liz shook her head and Mouse sighed.

"Try bringing that up to him." She muttered.

"You should come with us." Liz mentioned.

"Maybe next time." Mouse shook her head.

When they got back to the bureau they went their separate ways, Liz to her room, Mouse to the library. Abe's stands were set up with the books he had been reading last. She sighed seeing the empty tank and ran her hand over it. "Have you gone to see him yet?" Mouse's hand snapped back as she spun around, startled by the professor who was looking down at her knowingly.

"No, I- I couldn't see him like that." She shook her head. "I'm not strong enough."

"My dear, there are many things you aren't, but strong isn't one of them. When Abe was in trouble you dove into demon infested waters to bring him to safety." He walked downstairs as he spoke before stopping in front of her.

"And yet I can't see him in the hospital." She muttered. "What does that say about me?"

"That you know what you are and aren't capable of. Though, I think if you look within yourself you'll find you are more than capable of going to see Abe when he has awakened." He patted her hair lightly before turning. "In the mean time, I was just coming here to get my tape recorder. I am going to perform the analysis of Kroenen if you would like to come along."

Mouse followed him upstairs and to one of the laboratories where the body of the usually leather clad creature lay naked under a sheet of plastic. Mouse put on a pair of plastic gloves as Professor Broom set down his cane. He slipped on his own gloves before picking up the tape recorder. Mouse picked up a legal pad and a pen and nodded to him before he hit the record button.

"Subject: Karl Ruprect Kroenen, born in Munich in 1897. Suffered from a masochistic compulsion," he lifted the side of the plastic up allowing Mouse to see the arm of Kroenen, the skin had been cut and sewn together, it looked like it was browning and leathering, like the way pages in books yellowed with age, so did the skin on the creature before her. "Commonly known as surgical addiction."

"Like body dysmorphic disorder?" Mouse asked as she stepped closer.

"Similar." He replied shortly as he moved to the head of Kroenen. "Both eyelids surgically removed, alone with his upper and lower lip." He flipped the plastic off of the body making Mouse wince.

"That must have made speech impossible." She mentioned and he nodded as he moved to the chest.

"The blood in his veins dried up decades ago, only dust remains." He pulled a clicking peg out of the chest of Kroenen, and held it up.

"What is that?" Mouse asked stepping closer.

"It's what keeps him going." He replied as he looked down at the young woman he had helped raise. "Like winding a clock."

"What life force kept something like that alive?" Mouse looked down at Kroenen with a shake of her head.

"That is a very good question my dear. A very good question indeed."

About an hour after finishing the analysis of Kroenen, the professor said he had something to work on, and not wanting to be left alone with the disturbing body, Mouse went to find something to do. She finally gave up, bored and decided to have some dinner. After going to the cafeteria she prepared herself a plate and ate, reading a book she had picked up in the library beforehand. She was about halfway through before a siren went off making her look at the ceiling.

"Is this something I can help with?" she asked.

"It's nothing. Red's just escaped again."

"Whose turn is it to tell the Professor?" someone asked before they both looked at Mouse.

"Fine." She heaved a sigh and got up before walking back to the library. "Professor," she called to him. "It's Red, he's-"

"Gone out again?"

"Jeeze-" Mouse jumped, before holding her heart. "You're gonna end up killing me the way you do that." She looked at him and he shook his head before walking to H.B.'s room where three agents were combing the place. Mouse sat on the bed in the back of a pickup truck, and picked up one of the cats. It purred as she scratched it behind the ears.

"Sir, he left his locator. Should we send out some scouts?" One of the agents mentioned to Professor Broom.

"Enough enough enough." The professor waved his cane as he shook his head, turning his back on the huge hole H.B. had punched in his wall to escape. "He'll never change." He sighed. "A child." He walked away. "Always a child." Mouse stood up and handed the cat, a skinny black cat to an agent as she walked out, after Professor Broom.

"Perhaps letting Liz go out with Agent Myers wasn't the best idea." Mouse offered. "You know that's where he is."

"I know." He looked at the young lady next to him. "But if Liz was to have feelings for this young man and not Hellboy-"

"She doesn't."

"But if she were to," he continued. "Don't you think keeping her here to keep Hellboy happy would be for the entirely wrong reasons."

"I understand what you mean." Mouse nodded. "But she's not into Myers!"

"Don't you think that's up to her to decide?" he asked and she sighed but nodded. "It would be like us making you go visit Abe even though you don't wish to see him, because we all know it would make Abe feel better."

"I never said I didn't want to see him!" she protested. "I- I'm just… Scared." She admitted softly.

"As is Liz." Professor Broom told her making her look down. "And most young ladies when what they want is right in front of them. Or so I'm told having never been a young lady myself." He joked making Mouse giggle lightly.

"Don't be upset at Red?" she looked up at him. "He's scared too." She explained. "He's scared of how she makes him feel."

"I understand." Professor Broom nodded. "Now why don't you get some sleep, you've had a long day. Hellboy will come back, he always does."

"Good idea." She agreed. "Good night Professor." She gave him a hug and he chuckled as he held her for a moment.

"Good night Mouse." He replied before she walked off towards her room. Little did she know, that was the last conversation she would ever have with the professor.


Hope you liked it!

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