And To Dust, Return [Complete]

[Tess Abrahams]

How did you become interested in your focus area?

That was easy. Good, good - starting out with a slow pitch was the way to do things. Okay, so: well, see, it started with Mason vs Milney, back in 1995, which was a landmark case for the state of Oregon, if you didn't know -

But of course you would know. That's why you're in the big chair in the office with the view - oh shit, that sounds so judgmental and that's totally not...

Right. 1995. It was a case that my father took on and he used to come home late from his office and sit at the kitchen table with stacks of files and reference books, burning the midnight oil on coffee and determination and sometimes I would --

You're rambling. Stop rambling. Just answer the question concisely, professionally.

Whatever. Skip it, move onto the next one.


What do you envision yourself doing in 10 years?


Well, by then I hope to see a lot of reform on mutant rights acts and to have established a protective convention dedicated to the preservation of those movements and the promotion of equal responsibility within society.

But of course, it's hard to say, really. Ten years is a long time. I don't even know what I'll be doing next week, nevermind the next decade --

Which isn't to say that I'm not motivated or am lacking direction, it just. Um.

Shit.


What would you do if you didn't receive the fellowship?


... Oh my god. Oh my god.

Tess Abrahams looked up from the print-off gripped tightly in her hands, her face pale and stricken where it reflected in the window. For one terrible instant the glass became a projector screen, the culminated efforts of all the years leading up to this moment playing at double-speed and suddenly flickering and careening out of control, film bleeding together until it was all just one multicoloured blur that suddenly snapped to a halt. She stared out at the sun drenched yard.

This was a disaster.

A stifling need to get out of the confines of the living room had her leaping from the couch, bare feet slapping against the floor as she fled into the kitchen.

"Oh thank goodness!" Tess cried, divine relief flooding through her as she nearly bowled into a familiar figure on his way out. "Vipul! You're perfect!"

Before the Indian mutant had a chance to respond, she thrust the now-crumpled sheet of interview questions at him. "Okay. You are a prestigious university faculty member in charge of sifting through countless scholarship applications, a thankless job that you don't get paid nearly enough to do and as if that wasn't enough, to add insult to injury this year you've been put in charge of running the physical interviews as well. I am a hardworking, eager hopeful trying to make a good impression. Go."

[Vipul Chandrashekar]

Vipul paused on the way out the door, easing the pack of Marlboro reds back into the front pocket of his shirt as he shifted his weight to face Tess. He opened his mouth to speak, a bit taken off guard, and then nervously smiled.

"Well, I think the first thing is that you should relax."

He passed a reassuring smile, then quickly scanned down the crumpled paper in his hands.

"A lot of these questions are really just to make sure you can read between the lines. This first one, you see, they're looking for not necessarily field experience, but more to the point that you at least know what you're getting into. You don't have to tell your life story, just...you know...put yourself and your field in the same box."

Seeing that he probably wasn't getting out of it with just a soundbyte, he gestured to the kitchen table.

"Sit down, please."

He opened the fridge, retrieving a jug of something that looked vaguely viscous, like buttermilk. Taking two small juice glasses from the cupboard, he eased both to the table as he sat.

"Lassi?"

[Tess Abrahams]

"I am relaxed. I'm totally relaxed. Why? Do I seem too anxious? Because if I seem too anxious then they're not going to take me seriously - or maybe it's a good thing, it'll impress upon them just how much I want this --"

She trailed off, nervous diatribe cut short by Vipul's query. The pitcher in his hand was filled with something thick and creamy. Tess didn't know exactly what Lassi was (beyond being, presumably, what he was offering) but he'd never steered her wrong when it came to delicious epicurean exploits.

"Oh. Sure, thanks," Tess nodded, sinking into one of the careworn kitchen chairs. Her knees bounced underneath the table, a rhythmic rattle piercing the sedate hum of the room. "It's just... this is really, really important. And if I'm supposed to read between the lines, isn't that what they're going to do? They want Hemingway, not Salinger."

[Vipul Chandrashekar]

Vipul poured a small measure of the mango-flavored drinkable yogurt into each glass, before returning the cap to the jug and putting it aside.

"They are, yes."

Vipul sipped at his lassi, mindful not to quaff and have a nice moustache full of the stuff.

"But, the whole point of it is that you have to be aware of your own value, virtues, and skills. Think of it less as applying for a prestigious fellowship, and more that you are marketing something valuable, which you are. You're marketing yourself, and you have to do it with confidence."

[Tess Abrahams]

The sinking feeling in Tess's stomach grew more pronounced and she slumped lower in her chair, exhaling a slow breath that wobbled out in woozy circles.

"That sounds a lot easier than it is," she frowned, twisting the cool glass he set before her between her hands. "UCLA already... well, I wasn't a "good fit"," the sarcasm contained within the air quotations was palpable. "Without this grant..."

Vipul was suddenly met with a look that bore all the terrified suppositions of the young mutant woman. "There's this awful feeling in the pit of my stomach that won't go away, Vipul, no matter what. Not even yoga helped."

[Vipul Chandrashekar]

Vipul knew the source of her frustration, and honestly, it was a growing one. Students trying to get an education, once they were 'outed', so to speak, were increasingly finding doors slammed in their faces. There were ugly forces at work beyond the control of the students, which made him a bit angry sometimes.

"Do you have a short list of universities you're applying to?"

[Tess Abrahams]

The girl nodded, jerking up from her chair with a surplus of anxious energy motivating the motion. She disappeared up the stairs; when she returned, she carried a slim yellow Duotang, tabulated with coloured sticky notes.

"Red are rejects, blue are hopefuls, green are a go," Tess explained, slapping the file onto the table top and pushing it towards Vipul. The red section was notably thicker than all of the others.

An easy silence fell in the room as Vipul thumbed through the pages. Tess fidgeted, took a sip of the cool, sweet drink; the texture threw her for a moment but beyond that it was a refreshing escape from the still heat.

"There, that one," Tess leaned over the table, slipping two fingers between a page and tapping. "Loyola. That's the big one left. That's... that's the one that would be really great to get. I mean, really great."

[Vipul Chandrashekar]

Vipul paused a moment, as if he was parsing some bit of deep thought. In reality, the network was busy at work...

...at the University of Chicago, Vipul was also hard at work. Here, he was a research assistant in the molecular biology center. Not a lot of networking in common with the general direction of PolySci that Tess was headed, but he began to put out feelers. You never knew whether a professor you put in long hours for was chummy with a humanities professor across campus, or knew a guy who knew a guy. A favor was called in, and a few phone calls were promised. It was a decent start...

...in Sacramento, Vipul was also at work, this time as what he would've called a phone wallah back home, putting calls out and canvassing for a PAC affiliated with the Democratic Party. Again, networking helped. His boss had pro-mutant sympathies, and getting the promise of at least getting to talk with the right person who might help was a good way to pay it forward...

...back at Rendecion, Vipul smiled furtively, nodding.

"Loyola's a good school, yes."

He continued to browse. He eyed the list of blue schools, continuing to see where and if he might have an angle. Some he did, and others he didn't. After a moment, he turned the list back over to Tess.

"You've given your list a lot of thought. Why don't you relax, take a moment, and try to answer a few of those questions from the fellowship for me?"

To help disarm her, Vipul reclined in his seat a bit, and reached up to unbutton one of the buttons on his shirt, to enhance the casual effect.

"Remember, relax, it's just me, you know."

[Tess Abrahams]

Tess nodded and rolled her shoulders back, willing the tension was holding them up around her ears away. Vipul was right; there was no pressure here, in this familiar place. There was only the hum of a distant lawnmower and the rhythmic whirr of clothes tumbling in the dryer, orange blossom and jasmine riding on the back of exhaust fumes in the whispering breeze coming from the window above the sink. Someone had rearranged the dwindling alphabet magnets on the refrigerator to spell MOO above an inexplicable picture of Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam on a basketball court.

She took a breath and pulled the list of questions back, smoothing it's creases against the table surface with a palm as she scanned it's contents.

Why did you apply to X University?

Loyola, her mind supplied. That was a good place to start. Tess cleared her throat and read the question aloud, substituting her mental correction in place of the unknown university. She took Vipul's answering silence as a cue to go ahead whenever she was ready.

"For as long as I can remember," Tess began haltingly, "I've been working for a cause. My father used to say that the universal purpose of life is to help others. It might sound overtly idealistic but I believed it then and I believe it now. When I was doing my research on colleges, I specifically looked for establishments which promote this same idea because it's something that's very important to me and my future career.

"You have one of the top International Law programs in the country, which is what I plan on majoring in. What's more, you have a reputation for indiscriminately recognizing your students based on academic excellence, accountability, and hard work - factors which should determine eligibility but which, unfortunately, are becoming secondary considerations. I respect that and I feel that my goals and ambition are a perfect match for what you provide."

Tess stopped and licked her lips, glancing at Vipul nervously. It had felt honest and good but maybe... too much so?

"Please tell me if I sound like a complete idiot. I won't be offended."

[Vipul Chandrashekar]

"It's a very good start."

Vipul nodded, at least trying to fuss through her answer to pick out room for improvement.

"It's vague, however. Intentionally so, I think."

They both knew what was missing.

"You don't have to be afraid. Say what exactly is at stake. You have to believe in it enough to say it. If this university is worth your time, they will rise to that challenge."

[Tess Abrahams]

"Guess this is one of those big life moments, huh?" Tess dropped her chin into her hands and blew her hair out of her eyes with a loaded puff of air. What Vipul was saying was true. If ever there was a time to own up and stand tall, this was it. Otherwise it would be conceding to a force that saved it's dirtiest moves for hand-to-hand where one was vulnerable and away from the collective support of the herd.

Still, it was one thing to rehearse over a grooved kitchen table with a trusted friend and another matter entirely to point blank a stranger who held your future in their hands.

Tess worried her bottom lip, rolling a troubling thought over. "Do you think... is it ethical to hope that being a mutant will count in my favour when I don't think it should count against it? That seems like such a double-standard."

[Vipul Chandrashekar]

"It's affected the way you were raised, and that is the advantage you should sell."

The Indian mutant sipped at his lassi, recalling his own personal struggle. Any time this issue was brought up, it was so easy to frame the narrative in the most familiar ways.

"It's true that some powers may predispose some of us to do better or worse in certain areas. In some way, that's not new. I'm rather good at basketball, but I don't expect to get a call from the Lakers since the only way I'm cracking six feet tall is with a pair of high heels, and that's not happening."

He smiled and gave a bit of a self-deprecating laugh, setting his glass down.

"Before there was...us, it was, you know, similar things. People getting herded off to be 'the other', because of what? Their skin color? Gender? Religion? It's the same song, but then again, it's not the same at all, is it?"

Vipul's hands clasped together on the table, trying to wrap up his point.

"This is all starting to sound like a really ghetto sociology lecture, and that's frankly not my pay grade. What I'm saying Tess, is that your best hope is to put your story on a pedestal for these people to look at. If they don't like what they see, they would've found out anyway, and they'd be stupid to not see what kind of chapter in the human story we're writing these days."

[Tess Abrahams]

The comparison was not a new one. It had been a defining argument for all sides because that was how things were understood and assimilated; by using history to define the present. That it was a predictable force,dependablein it's cyclical turnabout, provided a measure of reassurance. All of this has happened before and all of this will happen again.

She wondered at Vipul, who had stood at this very juncture once and gone on to build a path that took him on the next leg of his own personal story. Had he been able to do this, to confide in someone who had worn the same shoes and knew about all the blisters and instep aches that went along with it? Or had he arrived in the solitary way that shaped strong vessels with a sharp hand?

Things were different already, Tess knew. Her generation had the benefit of places like the Cullen Institute, the safety of Rendencion; where would they be when she was sitting on the other side of the table, facing her own children?

Tess absently dogeared the paper before her, running a finger along the crease. "You could give Tony Robbins a run for his money, Vipul - and you wouldn't need heels. Seriously, I feel like I ought to be paying you."

[Vipul Chandrashekar]

Vipul gave a nervous laugh.

"I hold down about twenty-eight jobs, most of those are overtime. Believe me, I don't need another one."

He reclined in the seat a little, giving Tess something to think about.

"Talking about your roots and your narrative helps, Tess. Sometimes it's enough just to say it to yourself, because maybe you haven't before. When it happened to me, I was already a professional, you know. In Delhi. I had my degree, had my job."

A wistful smile crossed his face.

"Had a family, and a girl I very much wanted to marry. The one thing I didn't have was this."

He gestured to the house around them.

"And in an instant, in a few misunderstandings, it was gone. Have you ever read Midnight's Children? It's Rushdie, his first book of acclaim actually. Something I think might be worth your time."

[Tess Abrahams]

"No," Tess shook her head, mentally notating the title. "It was on the suggested reading list at Cullen's but..." she shrugged in a way that was not dismissive or apologetic, but a combination of the two that seemed to credit her unfamiliarity to having been young and caught up in the unimportant dramas of being a high school student.

It seemed to Tess as she listened to Vipul's CliffsNotes that they were all stitched together by the same bittersweet thread. You didn't get something for nothing and she had never met a mutant without a story kissed by sadness. There were plenty of humans who went through their lives without any extraordinary moments at all and with only the most domestic of losses to add height and depth to their experience. What a lovely, joyously boring life that would be!

"Carly Patterson took the gold in women's gymnastics in '04," Tess said, a long enough hesitation making the comment seem disjointed. "That was supposed to be me. I mean, really; we trained together for years and she was supposed to be an alternate because she hurt herself late the year before and was still recovering. We got all the way to the pre-Q's," she paused and rolled her eyes, "You know, the in-house competition where they decided who's good enough to try out for the Olympics.

"It was the end of day two and everything counted - every bounced dismount, every uneven battemonte; last beam routine of my set and I made a mistake, I miscalculated my speed and the angle and it went all wrong. That's when it happened. So Carly went to Athens where she won and I was banned from competing.

"And now we're here," Tess smiled a slanted smile as she leaned on the table, hands clasped together. "And it's not such a bad place to find oneself."

She stood, the chair shuddering backwards, and faced him with a bright-eyed, silly grin. "Let's give the ol' college handshake a try," Tess extended a hand across the table, "to our successes and our failures - and to all the ones that will surely come."

[Vipul Chandrashekar]

To listen to Tess's own story was to, in a sense, reconcile with his narrative. Telling these stories had a curative effect on the whole, and Vipul was always eager to listen as well as speak.

He rose to his feet, extending a hand to Tess.

"Here's to success."

He amended, keeping his sure sense of optimism.

[Tess Abrahams]

Their palms met and firm grips bound their hands together for a companionable moment. Tess looked across the table at Vipul and suddenly it seemed to be a very great distance that strained to stretch until it was a distorted mockery of itself and -

Now she was staring from the opposite end of the room at the frozen image of herself. There was fearful ignorance in the bend of her cheekbones and a hunger in her eyes that made Tess's stomach clench until -

The room snapped violently back to order and the girl gasped, dizzy with the sharp contrast. Their hands clenched into one fist over the center of the table began to shake.

"Let go," Tess rasped, grappling to find purchase with her other hand, "Vipul, let go..."

[Vipul Chandrashekar]

A look of concern crossed his face, then of worry as he pulled his hand back, but only so far. He was locked in the embrace.

"Tess..."

This wasn't right. Something was happening. Was this some kind of latent power? It wasn't that he felt he was being gripped like a vise, he simply could not remove his hand.

[Tess Abrahams]

Her teeth clenched together as she fought against the alien sensation that thrummed through her body, bumping meanly along the knobs of her spine and careening down the length of her arm where it attached to Vipul's like a livewire.

Tess became suddenly aware of his presence beaming brightly in the spinning room, a torch in a cramped dark space. The feeling grew until it was as though he were superimposed onto her skin and the lines of his ligaments traced against her own, his bones etched onto her bones until she could no more tell the difference between them as she could the sea from the sky on a grey morning.

"You have to let go, you have to let go," Tess chanted desperately as she tried in vain to reclaim her hand. She blinked and everything froze. Silence roared in the vacuum, a tidal wave of impending impact.

Vipul had become a living pointillism portrait made up of millions upon millions upon millions of grains of sand that rippled lethargically. Tess stared, awestruck and unable to understand what was happening - what was happening?!

A colony of grains that dipped and sharpened, the place where his collarbone would be, began to crumble.

[Vipul Chandrashekar]

"Ah...h..."

Vipul looked down in a sense of dawning horror as a terrible metamorphosis began to take hold of him.

"Help....help me!!!"

The organic bonds that held the basic cells together in his body were losing their hold with each other. His body abdicated control over it's own cohesion, and like a macabre ice cream, he began to melt.

[Tess Abrahams]

It was so hot. It was an oven and a furnace and the worst kind of shame all rolled into one horrible package. Rivulets of sweat dripped down Tess's face as the rolling desert landscape before her continued to disappear in whorls of disintegrating dust that curled sickly and rose into the air like so much smoke.

Vipul's screams came from a depth, muffled by the crushing effort that his destruction took but Tess could feel them vibrating up her arm and worming their way underneath her skin. Drawing a hoarse breath the mutant tried again to tear away and only found that the attempt tore at him, too. Writhing and terrified shards of the man settled over her invisibly like a shroud and Tess gagged as her mouth filled with a thick, ashy coating. Unable to stop the grim scene from unfolding, she turned to the only option left: she screeched wretchedly, her voice twining together with Vipul's agonized cries and rising in desperate pitch.

[Anna Fernandez]

"You totally cheated!"

"Whatever, I just ...jumped." Sixteen year old Ronnie dribbled the basketball, then tried to go between his legs and lost control of it. "Oops."

Scott Green, a laconic seventeen year old who'd been with the House for only a few months, quickly snatched up the basketball from the asphalt and tried a jump shot that banged in through the rusty hoop. There had never been a net, as far as he knew. Ronnie caught the ball as it bounced, and hopped up again, dunking it home.

He swung wildly from the rim, hollering victory, but it was a hollow triumph. Scott rolled his eyes at the other kid, and then shouted, "Shut up. Shut up!"

Ronnie dropped down lightly to the street and opened his mouth to ask what Scott's problem was when he heard it too. Screaming... from inside the house. He turned and leapt towards the front door, bypassing the driveway completely and landing on the footpath, basketball forgotten and rolling slowly down Banyon Street. Scott ran after him, both guys worried about what they would find inside, and scared (though they'd never admit it).

Bursting inside, the pair was momentarily transfixed by the sight that greeted them, until Ronnie realized that his sweaty shaved head was getting covered in a film of Vipul dust. "Aaahhh! What the fuck, man!? What the fuck is going on what the fuck, fuck, FUCK!?"

Scott's skin dialed through several different shades of grey before he could control himself, frozen in place and trying to figure out what to do.

[Jacob Foley]

Jake barrelled into the room and froze in his tracks. The toothbrush fell from his mouth and spattered the floor with minty foam. He abandoned any hope of comprehending the horrific scene unfolding before his eyes and took one cautious step forward.

"Tess?" he said, surprised by just how weak his voice sounded, "Tess, what can I do?"

His hand hovered tentatively over her shoulder, ribbons of fine dust draped over his fingers like ghastly lace. He cleared his throat.

"Tess!"

[Tess Abrahams]

"Stop it!" Tess screamed, a frantic wail that was sent out everywhere and to anyone who could possibly cause the plea to come to pass. The insatiable energy that connected her to Vipul pulsed centrally against her palm and with every passing second it grew more vicious, fueled by the whispers of his vanishing frame. "Jake! I... I c-can't stop... stop it, please oh god oh please! Please stop it! Ah!"

[Anna Fernandez]

"FUCK, dude, what -!" Ronnie was freaking out nearly as much as Tess was, but Scott had darted just barely into the kitchen, grabbing the mop out of the broom closet. He brandished the handle, ready to try a manual separation, but looking to Jake to see if that was okay.

[Jacob Foley]

"Don't touch them!" Jake barked, his voice cracking with fear.

And to emphasise his point he quickly retracted his hand. His eyes darted from Tess to what was left of Vipul, his stomach lurched. Where was Aidan? Somehow, he'd know what to do, Jake was sure of it. Tess gave a horrified sob. Slowly, he lowered himself onto his knees, breathless.

"Oh, shit... oh, shit... oh, shit... oh, shit..."

Transfixed by the point where their hands met, he closed his eyes, and fought to chase away his surroundings so that all was left was him, and the tiny pocket of air trapped between their palms. He exhaled, then exherted his will upon that miniscule point framed in his mind, and into it he poured himself. It expanded slowly at first, like a bubble of molten glass; swelling, pressing against the edges of his mind. The strain was gargantuan, and with a final grunt, he lost it.

First, the table was rent asunder with a thunderous crack, and as Jake was thrown violently backwards something hard struck him in the face, the last thing he heard was a chorus of rattling pans and shattered glass.

[Tess Abrahams]

Everything exploded all at once. With a roar the hollow void suddenly pounded shut and Tess hurtled diagonally into the wall, breath knocked out by the force of impact. She crumpled into a breathless heap on the floor, quaking and pale and surrounded by the wake of an earthquake.

Vipul. Oh god. Oh god. He was keening underneath her skin. What had she done? What had she done?!

Tess lifted blank eyes and stared at the puddle of skin and viscous fluid on the kitchen floor. Threads of bloody, pulpified muck began to spider out, trickling away from the main site of carnage in slow, ominous threads. There was an acrid, sulfurous smell in the air.

Gagging drew her attention to the doorway where Scott stood frozen in shades of anemic charcoal and Ronnie was bent over, hands on his knees, dry heaving.

"..." Tess opened her mouth but no words fell out, only a hobbled, sharply-drawn intake of breath. Jake. Jake was on the floor, unconscious, bleeding at the side of his head and maybe he was dead too. Maybe they were all dead. This had to be what it felt like, empty and senseless and incomprehensibly raw.

Not daring to move from the corner in which she was huddled to check on Jake, Tess dug the heels of her hands into her eyes and pressed until phosphenes blossomed in the darkness and blotted out the horrific scene her mind projected over and over onto the screen of her eyelids.

[Jamie Morrigan]

The screams had sent Jamie huddling under her covers in her bedroom, afraid the Three Elevens had returned. But the blast shocked her back out again. The whole house had shaken - things had fallen off the shelf above her bed. And now it was deathly silent, except for a car alarm squealing somewhere down the street. But car alarms didn't count. They only ever meant that something was happening somewhere else.

With a deep breath, the ten-year-old girl pooled up her courage and slid out of bed. She picked up the red Mag-Lite on her dresser - it never hurt to have a flashlight in an emergency, especially when it was heavy enough to use as a club - and tiptoed out the door and down the stairs.

She heard what sounded like Ronnie choking, and as she rounded the bottom of the stairs she saw him come staggering out the hallway leading to the kitchen, bent over double.

Jamie caught his eyes with a questioning look. His face was waxy and gray. "Jamie," he gasped, "don't go in there. Whatever you do. I need to call Anna - Wait, Jamie!"

Without a second thought, she'd run past him, and he was too unsteady to grab at her. Her shoes clapped down the hallway and into the kitchen where she saw--

She made a strangled noise, something like a gasp and a sob and a shriek altogether, and she backpedaled around the corner and leaned against a wall with her eyes shut. She'd seen Scott, and she'd seen Jake slumped against the counter island, and she'd seen what looked like the shredded remains of someone's clothing around the table, and everything had been covered in broken glass and... and...

Mud. That's what it was. Big, heavy gobs of it. It was smeared over the table and the floors and splattered against the cabinets. That's what she had seen. That was all.

Jamie slowly stepped out into the kitchen again and saw that it was true. Most of it was around the table, as if someone had dumped a wheelbarrow full of soupy earth, and it had exploded over every surface she could see. There were even footprints where Ronnie had walked through it and tracked it back out into the hallway.

Careful not to step in the mud, Jamie crossed toward Jake. His skin was cold and clammy, but she'd learned in health class how to check someone for a pulse, and his was there, but she wondered if that was what people on hospital shows meant when they said someone's pulse was thready.

She turned and was startled to see Tess huddled in the opposite corner, her hands over her eyes and breathing more rapidly than she'd ever heard anyone breathe before. Her arms and face were covered in mud, and there were even big clods of dirt sticking to her. Somehow Jamie felt instinctively that she was worse off than Jake.

The little girl walked toward Tess. She had to step in the mud to do it, but this was more important. "Tess?" she said, quietly, as if trying not to startle a frightened animal. "Tess? Are you okay?"

Jamie tenuously reached out a hand to touch the older girl on the shoulder.

[Tess Abrahams]

You don't have to be afraid. Say what exactly is at stake.

And he had talked of his home and his family and of the girl he had very much wanted to marry and of the way that things turned out. Things hadn't turned out. Things had gone wrong, so terribly wrong and oh fuck oh fuck his face --

A soft voice drew Tess gasping from her thoughts and she blinked at Jamie, at this small girl in the midst of so much wreckage. She wore white cotton socks on her tiny feet and they were wet with rusty brown stains.

"Jamie..." Tess couldn't stop staring at the damning socks, soaking up evidence from the lino thirstily. It was touching her; Jamie had come in here, into a terrible place that she shouldn't have seen, and she was covered in... in...

Alerted to a slow peripheral approach, Tess suddenly jerked into motion, scuttling violently away from the girl on legs that gave way like wet noodles. "Don't! Jamie, don't t-touch me, don't - get out of here! Get away from me!"

[Jamie Morrigan]

The little girl jumped backward and almost slipped in the bl-- mud. It was still mud. Tess left dark streaks of it on the wall as she scrambled away.

Jamie slowly turned around to see Scott still standing where she'd found him, ashen-faced and motionless. "Scott?" she said. "Could you make sure Jake's all right? And then can you give me a hand? We're going to need to clean this mud up."

She hurried over to the closet to find a bucket and a mop. Scott stammered something and lifted his hand, which he'd dragged through a stain on the counter. He looked at it and froze. It was mud now. There were even bits of grass in it.

[Tess Abrahams]

Part of Tess's mind - the part that wasn't numb or screaming hysterically - rebelled mightily against the idea of Jamie, little Jamie, cleaning up the... the mess. She was just a child and even if she was a child who had experienced terrors that had no right in existing let alone plaguing the young, there had to be some lines. There had to be. This was not a little-known country in the midst of a violent and bloody civil war and she was not a child soldier; this was a safe place.

It was supposed to be a safe place.

Tess gagged on the thought and blinked furiously, her eyes dry and burning as she tried to meet the chameleon-skinned boy's gaze. She couldn't remember the kid's name. Jamie had just said it and she couldn't remember his fucking name. It didn't matter. "Don't let her."

Scott flinched, crouching over Jake's still form. He looked scared. More than that, balls-to-the-wall terrified. Tess shook her head, hand coming down on a clump of soft soil just starting to seed.

"Don't le-let her--" before she could finish the sentence Jamie returned, bucket in one hand and mop dragging along behind her like a faithful puppy. Tess made a choking noise and shook her head, tremors ripping through her so fiercely that it was almost over the top, a comedic Lorne Michaels sketch. "Jamie, don't. P-please don't, please stop. You can't be here. You can't, you can't, you can't..."

[Jamie Morrigan]

Jamie gave her a troubled look and gripped the mop and bucket as if they were the last lifelines holding her on earth.

"Where else am I gonna go, Tess?" she said. "What else am I gonna do?"

If Tess wasn't going to be any help at all, Jamie would look elsewhere. "Scott, get a broom and a dustpan and start picking up the glass. Be careful you don't cut yourself."

"M-maybe we should call an ambulance," Scott said.

"No, it's mud!" Jamie shouted desperately. "You don't call an ambulance for mud!"

[Vipul Chandrashekar]

A few miles away, Vipul, accompanied by three more of himself, hopped in his GMC van and fired it up, leaving his apartment and heading for Rendecion. Along the way, he pulled out his cell phone and hit a speed dial.


Back at Rendecion, the cordless phone on the wall unit began to ring.

[Tess Abrahams]

"Be quiet! Everybody just be quiet!" lurching to her knees, Tess felt her heart hammering against the thin frame of her ribs so hard that it made her throat accordion into a shriveled knot. An overwhelming sense of panic was beginning to bubble forth and the room closed in. There was not a breath of air in the entire house.

They had to leave. All of them. They had to leave this place, now. Anna was out and the other kids were gone, at school or the park or wherever, and when Aidan got back he could light fire to the kitchen and they could watch from the safety of the garden as it went up in cleansing flames. A kitchen wasn't so important. How hard was it to rebuild?

Someone would have to drag Jake out first. Ronnie and Whatshisface. And Tess and Jamie could get out by their own strength -

A phone clattered harshly and Tess clapped her hands over her ears.

"I'm gonna be sick," she whispered, turning and stumbling through the back door on all fours. With a clumsy, see-sawing gait she leaned against the railing of the steps and wobbled down them on her knees until the grassy lawn caught her.

The soft green expanse was damp from recent watering and the moisture bled through the ruined denim of her jeans. This was real soil, not the masquerading fantasy inside the house. Tess dug her hands into it, tearing up bits of lawn as she threw up, tears spilling down her cheeks.

The phone wasn't ringing anymore. Instead, she heard the murmur of one-sided conversation and it made her exhausted stomach twist. Get out, she wanted to scream, get out of there! But Tess could only suck knife-sharp breaths in through her mouth, the sour taste of bile thick on her tongue, and twist the cool earth in anxious fists.

[Jamie Morrigan]

There was nothing for Jamie to do but watch Tess's meltdown. Her own mind was a jumble, as if it was trying to feel all the emotions she had a name for, but it averaged out to feeling nothing at all. So she settled on anger.

"Fine!" she shouted after the juddering screen door. "We'll just clean this up ourselves! Scott, will you PLEASE pick up the glass, or somebody's gonna get hurt! I swear, if this is a telemarketer..."

Jamie picked her way back across the kitchen toward the ringing phone and snatched the handset off its cradle. "Hello, Redención House?"

[Anna Fernandez]

Ronnie stood just outside the kitchen, back to the wall that ringed it so he wouldn't see anything else. He'd already puked once and wasn't keen for a repeat performance. "I tried to call Anna... she must have her cell phone off at... the doctor's..." His voice trailed off, and his legs gave out, depositing him shakily to the worn wooden floor.

Scott flushed red and then blended in with the background nearly perfectly as Jamie yelled at him, and looked down at the mop in his hand. It was all dirt now, just dirt clods, and mud... but it wasn't. He knew that Jamie was using an illusion on what had been Vipul. But this... made it easier somehow, even if you knew it was fake.

He was only a few steps from the broom closet, and he retraced them to retrieve a dustpan and broom, picking his way across the kitchen to where the glassware had shattered. There was mercifully very little mud there.

[Vipul Chandrashekar]

"Jamie, this is Vipul"

Vipul spoke calmly but to the point as he rode shotgun, leaving Vipul's full attention to the road as he drove to the house as fast as possible.

"I want you to tell everybody to relax, okay? I'm heading to the house. Keep out of the kitchen and make sure that Tess stays calm, are you listening? This is important."

The van quickly changed lanes, gunning it for a burst of acceleration as they passed a slower vehicle.

[Jamie Morrigan]

"Vipul?"

Jamie turned and looked over the muddy kitchen again. Scott's head popped up over the counter island, and his face was - literally - as white as a sheet. Jamie remembered the shoes and the clothing scraps by the table, and in her mind several pieces settled horribly into place.

"T-Tess ran out the back door," she said. "What happened? Were you here?"

She yelped in surprise as the handset was pulled out of her slack grip. Ronnie stood there, looking pale but very determined. "Jamie," he said, "I need you to go upstairs and stay there, okay?"

Jamie stumbled backward, breathing more rapidly. There was a smell in the kitchen that her illusion didn't cover. "But... I'm trying to help."

Ronnie laid his broad hand on gently on her shoulder. "I know, kiddo, and you've done a good job, but I need you to be brave and go now. Please."

The little girl backed out from under Ronnie's hand. Her face was a storm of uncertainty, and her eyes began to water. "I..."

The mud began to lose its clarity. Jamie ran out of the kitchen before it disappeared entirely.

Ronnie swore under his breath and lifted the handset to his ear. "Vipul... Holy shit, man, you gotta get here fast, we're flipping the fuck out over here!"

[Vipul Chandrashekar]

"Keep everybody as calm as you can. Tell them I'm okay. It's gonna be fine."

He'd felt the damage done when Tess killed him, and it was excruciating, but that was neither here nor there. The most important thing right now was to keep the kids together.

"Keep everyone out of the kitchen, okay? I'll handle all of that. Ronnie, I need you to find Tess. Keep your distance, but make sure she stays put and is okay. I'll be right there I promise."

[Ronnie Bluth]

"Okay, I'll do that... shit... get here soon!"

Ronnie nearly dropped the phone on the way to putting it back in its cradle. He reconsidered and just hooked the clip into the back of his shorts. With Jamie gone, reality had settled back in all its grisly details, but he didn't have anything left to throw up. Holding his breath, Ronnie crossed to the kitchen door in as few steps as possible.

He found Tess on her hands and knees in the back lawn with her back to the house. Instincts told him to stay on the stoop. "Tess. Tess! Come on, try and hold it together, okay, everything's gonna be all right."

[Tess Abrahams]

"Fuck you, Ronnie," Tess hissed. She was sitting on the grass, head between her knees, hands clasped against the back of her neck like a winded soccer player. Like a prisoner. Her fingers clenched into white-knuckled fists against the dark nest of her hair. "It's not gonna be alright!"

Their neighbors to the right were arguing again, like they did almost every night, their buzzing voices drifting into the still yard of the House. Tess wanted to laugh. They didn't even know what it was like to be angry.

"Who was on the phone?" she asked, lifting her head enough to see the neat rows of vegetables planted in the garden. "Was it Anna? Is she on her way, does she know w-what happened?"

[Ronnie Bluth]

Ronnie paced on the stoop. There wasn't much room for it, but he managed. He spoke like a stream overflowing its banks.

"No, no, I'm tellin' you, it's gonna be all right, okay? That was Vipul on the phone, can't keep the man down. He's on his way over now. So, see? It's cool."

[Scott Green]

Scott abandoned any pretense of sweeping up the broken glass after he brushed it away from Jake. He'd managed to check Jake's pulse with a shaky hand and found it steady enough, but was unable to get him awake. "Ronnie, dude, we may need help with Jake. He's totally out."

But Ronnie was deep in conversation with Tess, and Jamie had finally turned back into the little girl she was and fled the scene. He could respect how she'd summoned the gumption to -

"Oh God." Scott had looked up and the illusion Jamie had cast had faded and the contents of the kitchen had returned to being covered with an inside out Vipul. Jake was slumped awkwardly and Scott didn't know how to check for broken bones. He cleared a space on the floor, the island separating them from the main pile of goop, and carefully laid Jake out flat on his back, trying to keep his head and neck as immobile as possible.

"Where's Jitters when you need him," he muttered, then felt guilty because Anna didn't like them using nicknames. But Jim would know how to properly check for a broken back. "Ronnie!" he hollered, "Help me with Jake, we need to get him outside!"

[Tess Abrahams]

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

There was a fist in her gut and it cut loose with a vicious uppercut that sent her vital organs twisting. Tess closed her eyes against the hammering nausea that washed over her. Vipul. He was coming back, he was on his way right now and any minute he could turn onto the street, come through the back door with bits of himself on his shoes.

No, no, no, screamed a shrill and terrible internal voice, I can't. I can't.

What should have been a sweet relief was instead a deep, unwavering dread. Of course he was okay. He was in a million goddamn places. He was in a million goddamn pieces, too, all over the kitchen and all she could see was his agonized face as it melted away, his screams still singing in her veins so vividly that she could taste them welling underneath her tongue, metallic and sour.

Scott's voice clapped over the rising pitch of the argument next door, a grateful interruption.

"Go help Scott. Jake's hurt," Tess said flatly, rising on unsteady legs to stalk across the lawn. The fence that framed the property wouldn't be a problem; she couldn't jump like Ronnie, maybe, but she'd vaulted a hell of a lot higher obstacles with less motivation.

Before Ronnie could protest, Tess was flipping over the wooden planks and dropping out of sight into the narrow lane between lots.

[Ronnie Bluth]

"No, wait, Tess--"

Ronnie watched her vault away. It occurred to him that he could easily leap after her - but his train of thought ran out of rail right there. He wasn't wrestling her back to the house, not after what he'd just seen.

He turned and dashed back inside to help with Jake. There was nothing else to do but wait.

[Scott Green]

Scott looked up gratefully as Ronnie came back inside. "D'ya think we can move him?"

The other guy regarded Jake's prone body, and then regarded the rest of the room. "Don't have a choice. Gotta clean up the ...mess before we can have any paramedics over."

"Agent Smith en route?" Scott eased his hands under Jake's armpits, nodding Ronnie down to his feet. Together they heaved him up as gently as possible and awkwardly waddled out the back door to the deck.

[Vipul Chandrashekar]

A trio of Vipuls raced through the front door, headed to the kitchen. The lead Vipul gave pause for a moment when he saw the carnage of himself spread out everywhere. He shook it off, and looked to Ronnie and Scott.

"Where's Tess?"

The other Vipuls quickly got to work attending to Jake, who looked to be unconscious and possibly badly injured. Another Vipul entered, and pulled mops and buckets out from the nearby closet.

[Ronnie Bluth]

Ronnie bolted to his feet, relieved that someone else could be in charge now and he didn't have to pretend to know first-aid. "Vipul! You're a sight for sore eyes, man... uh..."

The boy threw Scott a helpless look and turned miserably back to Vipul. "Tess is gone. She just took off, and I didn't know what to do."

He tried not to think too hard about what he was seeing as Vipul started cleaning up the remnants of himself.

[Scott Green]

Scott hovered uneasily around the perimeter of Vipuls surrounding Jake's still body. Hands suddenly left with nothing to do, he hugged his arms across his chest and watched as a pulse was felt for, breathing checked.

"Shit, dude," shaking his head, Scott shared a fleeting glance with Ronnie. "It's not like anyone could stop her after..."

The sentence died slowly, stilted by the obvious events that still coated the opposite room.

Scott licked his lips and blew out a gust of breath, corralling his nervous energy into a useful purpose as he made for the stairs. "I'm gonna go check on Jamie, make sure she's okay."

[Vipul Chandrashekar]

"Do that."

Vipul nodded to Scott as the others got to work.

"Let's all take a moment to calm down. I don't think, whatever this is, it's something that you have to worry about. Some kind of latent power within Tess interacted with my own power, and caused it to go wrong. I don't know how to explain it yet, but I'll figure it out."

He looked to Ronnie.

"Did you see where she ran off to? I can at least put a few of myself on her trail."

[Ronnie Bluth]

"She just took off over the back fence, toward the middle school," Ronnie said, pointing. "Uh... latent power? You mean she's getting new powers? What about Jake, I mean, I never seen him do shit like that. Is he all right?"

He turned to address the question to the Vipuls who were tending Jake before he realized there wasn't any point to it.

[Vipul Chandrashekar]

"Doesn't seem to be anything broken, just unconscious."

A Vipul retrieved a bottle of ammonia from under the sink, dribbling a little on a paper towel. This was passed under Jake's nose, with the intention of rousing him awake.

Meanwhile...

Vipul, tipped off by Ronnie's pointer, was already swinging the GMC around, en route for where he thought he had a good chance of intercepting Tess.

[Tess Abrahams]

Hang a left down Eucalyptus Drive, cut behind the two-bedroom starter home that's been up for sale as long as anyone can remember thanks to the highball asking price that isn't up for negotiation, loop over to the middle school and veer into the scraggly woods that border the football field.

Tess ran, her sneakers slapping obscenely on the pavement, mind on autopilot as she pounded away from the House toward... shit, where was she going? It didn't matter. Anywhere was a perfect destination. Anywhere that wasn't there, anywhere that didn't have eyes that had seen it.

"Jesus!" a sudden vibrating against her hip nearly startled Tess into tripping over a knot of tangled tree branches, and she jerked harshly to the right, crashing loudly off the shoe-worn trail. Breathing raggedly she felt her pocket, tracing a square outline; cellphone, her mind supplied, it's just your cellphone.

Through the woods and then you'll be out of the residential area, into the older part of Los Santos, condemned buildings leftover from the golden age juxtaposed with video rental joints and takeaway restaurants, the occasional titty bar breaking up the monotony with flashing neon signs and lax ID policies.

She ignored the call, didn't bother to check who it was. Her arms pumped fiercely as she burst through the foliage, torn leaves fluttering in her wake. Suddenly her mind caught up with her soles and she knew where she was going, breath leveling as it focused in on the direction. Tess pushed aside the panic trying to crowd it's way into her step and pressed on. Her phone started buzzing again.

Left on Metcalf. The old theatre. Nothing but exposed beams and suspended walkways. Just like old times.

[Jacob Foley]

"Ngh!"

Jake groaned himself into wakefulness. The pungent waft of ammonia made him wince and his eyes snapped open. An explosion of blue dots peppered his vision and in his gut he felt that falling feeling. He jerked upright in sudden recollection of the nightmare that had sent him to sleep in the first place.

"Oh... fuck!" he muttered, and slumped back to the ground.

While his head swam, he picked out a familiar face framed in the pale glare of daylight.

"Vipul, thank God... I thought you were man soup."

[Aidan Fox]

Afternoon wound into evening, which, close to midsummer on the Southern California coast, didn't look a whole lot different aside from the longer shadows. Night crept up in a hurry around eight PM, and it didn't pay to hang around in the wrong parts of Los Santos too close to dark. That gave the hunt for Tess a special urgency.

Vipul was an entire missing persons unit all to himself, and when Aidan got off work, he joined the search on his motorcycle, focusing on the streets he knew Tess frequented on her morning runs. He'd already ridden past the old theatre on Metcalf when he got the call from Vipul that someone had spotted a weeping girl running into the abandoned structure hours ago.

Aidan rode up the concrete handicap access ramp to the front doors and killed his engine before walking his Harley into the foyer. This wasn't a part of town where he wanted to leave his bike unattended in the open for any period of time. He put down the kickstand under a vaulted art deco archway and pushed his way through the house doors into the empty auditorium.

Most of the seats had been removed, leaving a broad slope of scarred hardwood stained and filthy with neglect. The stage was just as barren, littered with fragments of foam set pieces and odd pieces of wooden construction. Above the stage were a half-dozen or so flies suspended by chains from pulleys in the ceiling, long metal rods that once held up backdrops and stage lighting and actors in harnesses. They were rocking back and forth. Someone had been up there.

"Tess?" Aidan shouted out. His voice echoed through the auditorium, swallowed up by the cavernous fly tower. "Tess, it's Aidan. Come on, let's talk."

[Tess Abrahams]

At some point during the declining days of the old theatre, a renovation had been started, an attempt to vault the ceiling above the stage and grade it's slope. It had probably been meant to improve the acoustics though with steadily declining interest as multiplexes became popular, how well Arthur Miller's monologue was heard from the back row had probably been the least of the owner's worries. Whether they themselves had come to this conclusion or funds had simply run dry mattered little; the reno had been abandoned and years of neglect had added a tint of shabbiness to it's sad appearance, bare-boned framework curling in the air like a whale's ribcage.

High above the dust-faded floor on a crossbeam sat Tess, her feet swinging in the open air below. There was a pulsing sting in her palms from the exhausting spectacle of aerial spins and launches that had been performed upon the structural skeleton of the auditorium, but at last the woman had found some sort of quiet mental plane, an exhausted peace. Now she sat, watching the shadows shift and play amidst the dancing dust motes of the upper levels and feeling sweat dry slowly, tightening in her pores in a way that made her more aware of her skin. Every deadly inch of it.

A building sense of dread bubbled in her chest as th snarl of a motorcycle engine bounced against the outer walls. The sounds of Aidan's approach were softly amplified; crunching debris under thick soles, measured breathing, the rustle of cotton like whispers of anticipation.

From up here, perception was off, thrown into a open-lidded blender and splattered Picasso-style. Aidan looked like a head on top of impossibly tiny legs, his torso completely erased by the vertical divide. Tess rolled slightly as he talked, her profile catching in the lopsided edges of light that filtered through a jagged-edged hole in the roof. Beneath her hip the wood was strong and solid.

"Hey," she said softly, looking down at him. "It's probably not a good idea for you to be here, Aidan. Something's wrong. You could get hurt."

[Aidan Fox]

"Said the girl sitting on the rafter fifty feet off the ground," Aidan said. "I'll take my chances."

He scanned the tangled structure of the ceiling, now that his eyes had adjusted to the dark. Running along both walls was a steel catwalk painted in varying shades of black and rust, and, standing on the catwalk, the rafters would be within arm's reach for someone acrobatically inclined. Aidan began looking for a way up onto the catwalk. Probably a couple ladders in the wings of the stage.

He started meandering toward the stage, but he took care to keep Tess in sight. "You should come back to the House, Tess. We've been worried about you."

[Tess Abrahams]

"Is everybody... how are they?" Tess gripped the smooth edge of the beam, toes curling in her sneakers anxiously as she followed Aidan with her eyes. He was heading in the right direction, would come to the pull-down ladder concealed in the wings that offered a way up within a handful of paces. And then he'd be up here.

The idea seemed to make the air heavier and Tess turned her concentration elsewhere, hands coming to either side of the wooden support as one long leg extended back and up, straight as an arrow. Slowly it descended on an exhale, muscle releasing in measured time, until she was straddling the beam, hips hovering just above the knotted surface as her weight shifted to balance on her hands. A cross sit wasn't hard; more like a bit of fluff to fill in the time between real moves. It was a promise of motion.

"It was pretty bad when I left," Tess explained. Probably needlessly.

[Aidan Fox]

"Everybody's a little shaken up, but they're okay," Aidan replied, and he took out his cell phone and started punching in a text: FOUND HER! old thtr. will call soon. "Jake's got a little headache, that's all. Vipul's absolutely fine. He's not angry or upset - he just wanted to be sure you were safe."

He hit SEND just as he spotted the ladder, and he stowed the phone and gave the ladder frame an experimental tug to make sure the moorings were still secure. Then he began to climb.

[Tess Abrahams]

Rattling metal signified that Aidan had found his way, each stepped marked by a hollow clatter as his boots scuffed against the rungs.

"Absolutely fine?" Tess paused, rolling the words around in her mouth. They felt awkward, marbles in a diction lesson. "Do you know what happened, Aidan?"

[Aidan Fox]

"Vipul told me everything," Aidan said, his voice still punctuated by the rhythm of boots on rungs. "I think he's less traumatized than you are right now, to be honest."

He popped back up into view at Tess's level and stepped onto the catwalk. "I mean, yeah, he's a little spooked, too. It's scary seeing your power spin out of control like his did."

[Tess Abrahams]

Like... his did?

It took a moment to parse what had just been said and even then it didn't make much sense. Tess felt her balance falter and she sat back, confusion pinching her face together. This wasn't Vipul's fault, he'd simply been trying to help her and then... well, then, but that hadn't been because of him. Right?

Tess's eyes were wary, flicking to Aidan's knees and back again. "What do you mean? Vipul... it was him, too?"

[Aidan Fox]

Aidan nodded. "It was both of you. Some kind of interference between your mutations. His body tried to split to escape the bond, and... well."

There was no point in rehearsing the scene that was no doubt engraved in her visual memory. Aidan walked calmly toward her. "What happened was a freak accident, Tess. Something in your mutation triggered a defense mechanism in his. It's not your fault."

[Tess Abrahams]

"It's not not my fault either," Tess snapped, gathering her feet under her and pushing to stand up. Her arms stretched upwards and grabbed a thin length of scaffolding wrapped in cords, one end blossoming with a limp ellipsoidal reflector that had seen better days.

A mixture of frustration and fear and something not-quite-guilt washed over Tess and she directed the brunt of it at her approaching friend, stance cagey as he grew closer. "Just because it was an accident doesn't mean it's okay. Whatever happened, whatever caused it, is not okay. Look, would you just stay there, please?"

The relief in there being some kind of explanation was fighting hard against the urge to reject it, the need to keep everything else out while her mind struggled to process an alien scenario. The ache for her mother was so strong that Tess thought she might suffocate in it.

"Please stay back, Aidan," Tess said again. There was quiet strain in her voice. "This doesn't make sense and you need to stay there, please. Maybe it was some unpredictable combination of our abilities. But even so, what I did, my part? That's not my mutation, that's not how it works. It's a party trick, a neat little footnote, it's not supposed to hurt others."

[Aidan Fox]

"It's frightening, isn't it?" Aidan said. He took two more steps toward Tess and then leaned on the railing just a stone's throw away. "You learn in an afternoon that you've got this strange ability that you didn't even know was possible. You don't know how it works, or what its limits are. You don't know what'll happen the next time you use it, whether you'll be able to control it, or whether someone's going to get hurt because you couldn't. All you know is, for the rest of your life, you're going to have to find a way to live with it."

Silence hung between them. Aidan let his eyes wander over the far wall, just to give her some emotional space.

"There are a lot of mutants who've been where you are now, Tess," he said. "Some of them are back at the House now, and they want to help you."

[Tess Abrahams]

If Tess's face hadn't been stuck in an expression of fearful affirmation, she would have gawked at the straightforward ease with which Aidan laid everything out. Every fleeting worry, every unexpected complication: stripped bare and accounted for in the open. She wanted to protest, somehow, but found herself at a loss as to what over. What was there to toss out if all the chips were in play?

"What if they can't?" a tear spilled down Tess's cheek and dove from her jawline as her grip on the scaffolding wavered. "What then? God, it was terrible, Aidan, and you're absolutely right; I don't know how it works, or if I can control it, or if someone will get hurt. So how I can I go back knowing that it might happen again, that the next time it might not be Vipul standing there and that things won't just turn out?"

[Aidan Fox]

Aidan took a deep breath, stared down at the distant floor, and let it all out. It could have been a breathing exercise, something to calm the nerves or steel them for a plunge.

"The way I see it, Tess, you've got two options," he said, meeting her eyes again. "Either you're going to touch another human being again, or you're not. Either way, you're in for a long process of self-discovery. The question is, do you want to do that alone, or with friends that care about you?"

He stepped up to the rafter she was balancing on and held out a hand toward her. "I trust you, Tess. Do you trust me?"

[Tess Abrahams]

There are many kinds of quiet. There is the hush that comes just before nightfall, in that eerie in-between space before birds sound their last calls of the day; the calm still that comes before a storm and the ragged, exhausted void of sound that follows after, both of which belong to each other but are different; there are the loaded silences of expectant children and the rolling containment of families crouching in rooms at surprise parties; a mother, watching her child sleep, exists in a state of awestruck wordlessness.

And then there are silences so heavy that they can only be felt, in the throb of a heartbeat deep in a throat, in the weighted drag against thin skin stretched over wrists, and in the dizzying pull against firmly-cast feet. Tess's jaw ached where her teeth clenched together, numb with the effort of keeping her breaths on an even keel.

I trust you, Tess.

A thread of tension seemed to spin from the tips of Aidan's outstretched fingers, a near tangible bridge of the space between them. Slowly, so slowly it almost hurt, Tess coasted a trembling hand along it's back until paltry millimeters separated the whorls of their fingerprints.

Petrified gaze locked with one of unwavering sureness.

Do you trust me?

With a startled gasp, Tess shut her eyes, closed her fingers around Aidan's hand and jumped, feeling the strength in his grip as he urged her momentum forward. The catwalk creaked as her sneakers landed solidly on it's grated surface, and she collided squarely against Aidan's chest, white-knuckled and shaking.

[Aidan Fox]

"Woah, easy!"

He caught her weight against his and braced her elbow with his free hand to keep her from collapsing. They stood there frozen in a not-quite-embrace, up until they both realized they were holding their breaths.

Aidan glanced down at their hands locked together. It was only their fingers that held them there, and there was no sign of crumbling skin or melting flesh. Neither of them, as far as he could tell, was exploding. And only then did Aidan exhale.

[Tess Abrahams]

It was different this time. Tess was aware of Aidan - how could she not be, pressed this close? - but there was none of the haunting superimposition that had taken over the connection between Vipul and herself. A giddy sound, caught between a laugh and a sob, fell from her lips and she sagged in relief, forehead butting against the sharp outline of his collarbone beneath his jacket.

"You're still here," she managed after a few moments of blessed, boring inactivity. There wasn't so much as a hum of warning in the pressure of skin on skin. Tess blinked furiously, exhausted and exhilarated all at once. "Oh my God, Aidan. You're still here."

[Aidan Fox]

It was an epiphany to them both, not that Aidan would have cared to admit it. As Tess leaned into him, Aidan wrapped his free arm around her and gently rubbed her back. "I'm still here," he echoed with a laugh. "Good thing, too. I had plans this weekend and all."

He looked down at the top of Tess's head. "You okay?"

[Tess Abrahams]

She nodded, unable to find words that adequately described just how okay she was just then. Aidan was whole and solid and she gripped his waist, content to let the moment unravel around them.

"That was so stupid," Tess said, taking steady breaths that tickled with the scent of Aidan's cologne, undercut with a faint sharpness of engine oil from the garage. She lifted her eyes, shaking her head faintly. "Brave of you, but stupid. Guess the motorcycle isn't just for show, huh?"

[Aidan Fox]

"Well, not just," Aidan replied. "So... um."

There was a time when the threat of immediate death had passed, and so had the emotional outpouring following said threat of death, and you still had your arms around the girl you'd been figuratively and literally talking down from the ledge, and that was the time when things started to get potentially awkward. Endorphins were a funny thing that way.

"This might really destroy the whole 'brave-but-stupid' thing, but I'm going to feel more comfortable finishing this conversation on the ground."

[Tess Abrahams]

"Heights? Really?"

If that were true, then his nonchalant swagger had been one heck of a performance. Of course, having something other than the prospect of a dramatic plunge to hardwood below to concentrate on had probably helped a bit.

Tess let loose her deathgrip on the man and stepped back, enough so that they could maneuver around one another on the narrow walkway. There was some awkward shuffling as they circled one another, both trying to offer the opposite the lead.

"You go," Tess gestured to the ladder, timid huff of laughter following. She waited until Aidan was almost at the bottom before stepping onto the rungs herself; industrial appearance aside, the mechanism was old and probably couldn't be trusted with their dual weights.

Once safely on the floor, she wrapped her arms around her middle, needing somewhere to anchor them as she studied Aidan furtively. "So this is the part where I thank you for completely disregarding my request to stay back. And apologize that you had to come out here in the first place, I guess. It seemed like a good idea, at the time."

[Aidan Fox]

Aidan shrugged expressively. "Don't worry about it. Like I said, a lot of mutants have been in the same place. How do you think a thirteen-year-old feels after he burns down his dad's garage?"

[Tess Abrahams]

"You?" Tess's eyebrow rose and her mouth twisted in sympathy. "I guess that's one way to open a discussion on whether or not you're a mutant. How'd he take it?

[Aidan Fox]

"A lot better than I expected, actually," Aidan said with a sheepish smile. "But then, he was definitely more tolerant than the norm..."

Aidan trailed off, realizing he was about two sentences from mentioning things that had to stay buried. Damn it, and he'd started talking about Cullen's the last time he was out and about with Tess. He was setting a bad precedent here.

He cleared his throat and found somewhere else to direct his eyes. "Anyway. I just texted Anna to let her know I found you, but we really ought to be getting back."

[Tess Abrahams]

And the book of Aidan Fox snapped shut, once again. To say that the man was reticent about his past was a very generous understatement, and what small nuggets were unearthed never seemed to illuminate much beyond his capacity to be a constant mystery. Tess wondered what had happened to him to keep his defenses on perpetual lockdown.

"Oh. Oh, yeah, I guess we should. That's..." she trailed off with a slow nod. The idea of going back to the house still made her stomach twist but at least it wasn't igniting the desire to run run as fast as you can in the opposite direction. That, at least, was a good sign.

Glancing past Aidan's shoulder, Tess spied his motorcycle parked in a dim corner, a flash of chrome in the otherwise drab surroundings. She blinked. "Um. On that?"

[Aidan Fox]

"It's either that or walk," Aidan replied, and he snagged the key out of his pocket as he started toward his Harley. He crossed into the foyer and turned to see Tess following, if a bit hesitantly, approaching the motorcycle as if it were a sleeping mountain lion.

[Tess Abrahams]

That wasn't a particularly difficult decision. Tess frowned, scanning the body of the bike carefully before she shook her head. "Just... where are the helmets?"

[Aidan Fox]

Aidan shrugged. "Well, I just have the one, and I was kind of in a hurry. Thought it'd be a dick move to wear a helmet if I didn't have one for you. Oh, hang on."

He slipped out of his leather jacket and offered it to Tess. "The breeze can be pretty cold if you're not used to it."

[Tess Abrahams]

"Thanks," Tess took the jacket and slipped it on over her T-shirt, trying to ignore the factoids on fatal accidents that pinged around, lighting up her mental space. The leather sloped raggedly off her shoulders, arms two inches too long, but it felt good, beaten in like a favorite pair of jeans or a blanket so old and trusted that it never failed to stop a draft.

They walked out through the sad lobby, Aidan wheeling his bike and Tess following behind, taking in the glide of the Harley as though trying to appraise a stallion's gait. A stallion with an imposingly sleek and aerodynamic frame that looked like it had ten kinds of wild lurking below the surface, waiting to spring out and surprise the first mortal foolish enough to try and rope it.

Tess watched as Aidan easily threw a leg over, glancing over his shoulder at her expectantly. She twisted her hands in the sleeves of his jacket and then followed suit, mimicking his maneuver as she climbed on behind him and wrapped her arms around his middle in a rather crushing grip.

[Aidan Fox]

The first thing Aidan did was make sure he could still breathe. Then he slipped the key into the ignition, squeezed the clutch, and put his thumb on the starter switch. "You ready?"

Tess nodded curtly, and he fired up the engine, which snarled gamely and settled into a rhythmic growl: thump-thudda-thump-thudda-thump-thump-thudda-thump-thudda.

Aidan gave the Sportster a little gas and guided it smoothly down the driveway and into the street, where it began to sing.

[Tess Abrahams]

The sensation was similar to the time Felix had convinced her to go on the Whirling Dirvish at Six Flags, except that Tess had kept her eyes open and thrown up all over the tiny cage they'd been strapped into, which sort of ruined the rest of the ride. It was a mistake she didn't make this time.

Face firmly pressed against Aidan's back, she concentrated on the purr of the engine, the way it rumbled beneath them and on breathing through her nose whenever a smooth turn had them tilting to one side. The wind whistled past, whipping her hair into a frenzy and she quadruple-checked that her tight hold on the intrepid captain hadn't waned at all.

So busy was she in keeping her mind off the wicked speed they were rocketing along at that when it slowed, Tess barely noticed. It wasn't until Aidan cleared his throat that it dawned on her that all was quiet. They had stopped.

Relief spilled over her for the second time that evening and Tess unclenched her fisted hands with some difficulty. "That wasn't so bad!" she said with some surprise, shaking hair out of her eyes.

[Aidan Fox]

"Did you expect it to be?" Aidan asked with a mockingly miffed look. "I didn't even speed this time. Honest."

He turned to face the House. Tess, he realized, was just now doing the same.

"You ready to go in?"

He looked back and offered his hand in case she wanted to take it - to prove to the others she wasn't just back, she was safe.

[Tess Abrahams]

"That's only considered not speeding in Europe," Tess said with a wry grin as she slowly slipped off the Harley, legs still tingling with phantom vibrations from the ride.

Light shone from the windows of the House, warm beacons against the dark evening sky that seemed to beckon in welcome. From inside a few low rolls of conversation drifted out, too muffled to discern the speakers let alone the subject, and then they were gone, drowned out by the opening theme of Jeopardy on the television. It was just like normal.

Except of course that it wasn't, exactly. There was no such thing as a static state in a house full of mutants, Tess was finding. It was a constant shift, a changing playing field that offered little warning (if any) before rolling away in unpredictable directions. The best they could do was try and keep up.

It took a moment to realize that Aidan was waiting for her. Speed demon though he might have been, that quiet patience of his was a remarkable motivator. She met his gaze and laughed, the sound more soft, uncertain breath than anything.

"Not really," Tess said, and slipped her hand into Aidan's as they fell into step beside one another. Before them the steadfast outline of Redencion loomed, honest and unassuming. As they climbed the back steps, she felt the same lurching sense of vertigo that had urged her to leap across the open space at the theatre.

Tess gave Aidan's hand a squeeze and shrugged. "But there isn't anywhere else to go," she said, opening the screen door. "No turning back, now."