I Can't Hide From My Mind

[Andrea Kaine]

Sunlight spilled into ward 32 of the Jozua Clinic as Nurse Angelina Gutierrez drew back the blinds. "Good morning, Andrea! Oh, would you look at that? Beautiful day today."

The stout woman in her fuchsia scrubs turned from the window to see to the room's lone occupant, a thin, waifish teenaged girl with wet-looking dark hair and shadowy circles around her sunken eyes, which were shut like the gates of hades. The girl's exposed right arm was fitted with a catheter fed with fluids from a tree of intravenous bags above her bed, and wires that snaked from under her white medical smock led to a tall bank of monitors whose whirring and beeping maintained that atmosphere of sterile solemnity that was as endemic to hospitals as holiness was to a cathedral.

Gutierrez walked across the brightly lit wardroom and turned on a radio sitting on a desk, only to be startled by a throbbing hip hop beat. "Oh God, don't tell me you like this music, Andrea?" She looked over to the girl, who was still unresponsive on the bed. With a small, wistful sigh, the nurse dialed to an NPR classical station, and the room filled with the strains of a flute concerto.

"Much better," the nurse said. "I'll have to have a word with Cherie about her taste in music. If you want me to change it, you just let me know, okay?" After straightening a few articles on the desk, she bustled over to Andrea's bedside and took down the siderail that fenced her in. Moving the girl was a trivial thing; the nurse's arms were thick and muscular, and Andrea hardly weighed anything at all. With a firm but gentle hand, Gutierrez turned her so she was lying on one side, taking care that her weight didn't pinch any nerves or blood vessels, and she began inspecting the girl with a motherly touch.

"It's going to be a good day. Your brother is coming to visit, and I know how much he cares about you. And he's bringing a friend from school. They're going to be so happy to see you."

She turned to face the bank of monitors and began taking down figures on her hospital-issued smartphone. "And Dr. Heidegger says he has a new combination of meds he wants to try. You never know, it could be the one you need."

"The fox," Andrea mumbled. Gutierrez turned around.

"What was that, dear?"

"The fox feeds on bones in the dragon's den."

"Does he really?" the nurse replied. "Why would he do that?"

Andrea was silent again, and Gutierrez returned to her work with a sigh. Sometimes you could almost hold a conversation with Andrea, but even then nothing she said ever made sense.

"He thinks himself a dragon," Andrea said, "but he only gnaws at the bones. The trap is set for him, too."

"Well, someone had better tell him, then," the nurse said, but Andrea didn't say any more. She finished her work.

"Alex will be here in about half an hour. I'll see you then, dear."

The nurse put up the siderail again and swept back out of the room. Andrea lay listlessly on her side.

"Alex... beware the fox."

[Alex Kaine]

Alex and Lana jostled together on their seat near the rear of the city bus as it made a hard corner a little faster than advisable. Alex grabbed onto the seat in front of him and took Lana's weight in the side so they didn't spill into the aisle.

It wasn't luxury. But then, that was sort of the point. Alex and Lana had made an agreement: if she was taking him somewhere, they'd go in the BMW, eat Natasha's gourmet cooking, and indulge in whatever luxuries Lana thought were apropos, provided she didn't buy Alex any unreasonable gifts. If he was taking her somewhere, they'd take the bus, bring bag lunches, and seek the kinds of thrills that were freely available to a teenager earning minimum wage from a summer job. Neither one was allowed to complain. So far, it had been an interesting exchange program.

And, anyway, Alex had come to find that any time with Lana was time well-spent.

"So I really think you should come," Alex was saying. "Most of the House residents will be there... Tess is chaperoning, if Sergei needs any reassurance. It'll be great, pretty much every mutant in south LA will be there, plus a lot of mundanes who feel the same way about the MRA. It's a chance to make our voices heard. Real democracy in action."

[Svetlana Ustinov]

Lana let out a bit of a squeak as she slid into Alex's side, caught completely off-guard by the bus driver's sudden desire to join the NASCAR circuit. The bus was, by far, her least favorite of conveyances. But it was far better than the buses she was used to in Saint Petersburg, which had seen better days in decades past.

And it also meant a great deal to Alex that they kept to their agreed-upon program. In reality, it wasn't a hardship...after all, she was snuggled into his side - and bus or not, that was a plus. Overall, their exchange had been working well and there was a whole host of simple things she'd never been introduced to before.

Like peanut butter and jelly. Lana swore she could live on the sandwiches alone, quite happily. It had amused Alex to no end that first afternoon, especially given that the grape jelly had made quite the mess.

"I...I don't know, Alex...a rally? There will be news coverage everywhere...what happens if someone sees..." she began, and then abruptly stopped as he turned to look at her. It meant so much to him that it pained her to think of saying no.

"Alright, I'll come. But...promise me we'll be careful?" Lana finished softly, fingers smoothing out her shorts (http://www.polyvore.com/cgi/set?id=29412107) as she crossed her legs. She fished the small buzzing Blackberry from her wrist-bag, frowning at it before flicking it off and putting it away again.

"Is that the Center up ahead?"

[Alex Kaine]

Alex followed her gaze to the big, beige compound that occupied much of the next block, set back behind an expanse of parking lots and decorative trees. Across one large sandstone wall was the double-helix emblem of the Jericho Foundation and "The Jozua Clinic of Los Angeles" across the bottom.

"That's it," Alex said, stone-faced. He was always ambivalent about the place - on one hand, coming here meant spending time with his sister, which was growing more and more important to him these days. On the other, it was full of the most self-righteous, manipulative, exploitative bastards ever to apply for a government research grant. If they were keeping Andrea for her own good, then he was the President.

Alex and Lana were the only passengers getting off at the stop in front of the clinic. They shuffled down the narrow aisle to the front and disembarked onto the walk leading up to the clinic's main entrance. The building's facade was all glass and concrete and had the look of a hospital trying too hard to appear inviting.

Alex slipped an arm around Lana's waist as they approached the glassed-in front entrance, and he leaned his head down close to hers. "I know you don't advertise it anyway, but it's probably not a good idea to mention you're a mutant in there. They'll probably have their eye on you anyway since you're with me, and, well, they already know about me, but... you know. I just don't trust these guys to respect your privacy."

[Svetlana Ustinov]

His tone and his warning sent a shiver down her spine, in spite of the cloying LA summer heat. Lana was thankful for the arm he had around her waist, taking as much comfort from it as she did distant pleasure. They stopped a few steps before the automatic doors and she gently kissed his cheek.

"Don't worry, Aleksanderrr...I'll be fine. Come...introduce me to your sister. You talk about her so much I feel as if I practically know her already."

Lana smiled brightly as they continued inside and twining their fingers together as he pulled his arm away. The lobby was impressive, surrounded by glass and filled with light. Almost...almost welcoming, until she noticed the glances they were getting. Thinly veiled under what were supposed to be welcoming smiles.

She tightened her fingers around his as he led the way and kept a very tight hold on her energy levels.

[Alex Kaine]

The lobby could have been any well-funded hospital in the state. Just inside the tall picture windows was a waiting area with a lively, colorful pattern on the carpets and comfortable-looking chairs surrounding coffee tables stacked with magazines. There was even a small play area with brightly colored miniature plastic furniture and an assortment of small toys. The Jericho Center wasn't a hospital - not by Alex's estimation - but they played the part well.

With Lana's hand securely tucked in his, Alex struck for the receptionist's desk and, after a brief conversation and a signature, got a pair of visitor's passes and directions to Andrea's ward on the third floor. On either side of the desk were big flyers reminding all mutants that this was a government-authorized registration facility, and that registration was free, easy, and took less than ten minutes. Alex tried to ignore them as they walked past.

They turned down a brightly lit corridor into the bowels of the building, passing doctors and orderlies on their way to various appointments. From one room they could hear a heated argument as a man with a loud voice insisted, very vehemently, that no son of his was going to make household objects float with some creepy voodoo mutant shit, and if you can't keep yourself under control then by God one of these doctors will open up your head and cut out the part of your brain that makes you a freak.

Alex's grip tightened on Lana's, and he quickened his pace. It wasn't until the shouting had faded to a dull murmur behind them that he muttered, "God, I hate this place."

[Svetlana Ustinov]

The further they walked, the further into his side Lana tucked herself, fingers tight around his and her other hand resting on his upper arm. She blinked and bit her lower lip at the sounds of the violent argument, dipping her head to stare at the ground. Suddenly thankful for her own family...even if her father didn't seem very fond of her. At least, she mused, he'd never said anything like that.

Well. Not recently in any case.

Parents were supposed to love their children unconditionally, weren't they? No matter how unique they were? No matter what? It made her heart ache to contemplate it.

"I don't like it either...it...I...don't like it at all." she whispered back, her voice trailing off as she murmured in Russian. Around another bend in the hall, they came to a bank of elevators and pressed the little button marked with an upwards arrow. If it were anyone other than Alex's sister they were here to see, she'd have likely run back out the way they had come.

[Doktor Klaus Heidegger]

Klaus emerged from a patient's room, jotting down a few last notes. The argument down the hall had gone on for some time now. It amused Klaus greatly. There was no part of the brain that gave a person psychic powers. Well, at least there wasn't anything extra parts present in a telepath's brain that was not found in a normal brain. He'd seen so himself.

He looked up, saw Alex and a new visitor and gave one of his practiced smiles.

"I see you are here to see Andrea again. She is no different than most days: as you understand our work his highly experimental, but always to the good of those under our care."

Klaus turned his back to lead them to the room he knew they could find well on their own. He smirked as he thought of the billboards and advertisements all around the city and on the television screens inside homes and apartments across the state. A pretty, innocent blonde girl smiling shyly with various slogans.

The Jericho Center cured my cancer thanks to mutants who agreed to help research the mutant genome. Thank you!

Come to Jericho, and see what you can do to better the world!

I used to hate my powers, now thanks to Jericho, I don't have to be afraid anymore.

What was it about slender, innocent women that made people succumb to whatever you wanted?

"She's of course waiting for you."

Klaus paused at the door and opened it for the couple. As always, he would stand and watch a moment or two to see if Alex showed the mutant power Klaus knew he had. Of course, with the new girl attending him, he had to wonder if she was a mutant too.

[Alex Kaine]

Alex stiffened the moment Dr. Heidegger appeared from one of the exam rooms off the main corridor, and he didn't say a word to the man. Heidegger had been the one who had spoken to his foster parents when Children's Hospital Los Angeles had referred them to Jericho. Heidegger had been the one to recommend that Andrea be kept for long-term observation. It had been his office that had informed them that her condition had worsened, that Andrea was unresponsive, and that she would need to be boarded at the clinic indefinitely. That was when Alex had lost it, and the resulting eruption of his electrical powers had sent him to the juvenile detention system and nearly into the custody of Jericho himself. The next time he'd seen Andrea, she was already in a coma.

For all he knew, Heidegger had put her in that coma himself.

Alex contained his emotions by focusing on guarding Lana. He made sure to put himself between her and that smug bastard all the way up to Andrea's room, where he guided her with a gentle hand on her shoulder into the sterile serenity of the long-term wardroom.

The room wasn't very large, especially with an adjustable bed and a bank of medical monitors taking up most of the available space, but someone had obviously thought to pull back the blinds, and the place was full of sunlight. Alex was glad of that for Lana's sake. On the bed, her upper body elevated, lay Andrea. You couldn't miss the family resemblance between her and Alex, but her skin was noticeably paler from almost two years living in the cloisters of the clinic, and her closed eyes looked puffy and dark.

Alex squeezed Lana's hand and brought her with him to Andrea's bedside. Then he took Andrea's hand and rubbed it. "Hi, Andrea, I'm back. And I brought a very special friend. Andrea, I'd like you to meet Lana."

He lifted Lana's hand pressed it against Andrea's. "Go on, say 'hi.'"

[Svetlana Ustinov]

The Doctor's appearance set the hair on the back of her neck on end, and raised every alarm bell the young woman had. There was something about him that wriggled under her skin and made her completely uncomfortable. But...whether that was because of the man himself or the implication of where they were was unclear.

But it also served to knock Lana back into slightly better head-space. While still fearful and cautious, she was at least able to smile when Alex brought her into Andrea's room.

She was a lovely girl, and reminded her a great deal of Alex, their resemblance as siblings being strong. But the poor thing was pale and her closed eyes shaded dark from being closed up indoors for so long. A bright sunny room wasn't quite the right light to bring color to her cheeks.

Lana didn't have to force the smile to her lips when Alex tugged her close and pressed her hand to Andrea's. Her expression warmed as she spoke. "Hello Andrea...its a pleasure to finally meet you. Alex talks about you non-stop...all good things, of course."

[Alex Kaine]

"I've told Andrea a bit about you, too, actually," Alex said with a sheepish smile. "She always did say I needed to get better at making friends."

He reached down to clear a loose strand of hair out of his sister's face. "You two would get along really well. Andrea's much more outgoing than I am. She always has friends at school, even after they all found out she's a mutant. Maybe it's because of her gift, but... it seems like she knows how to empathize with anyone."

He was careful to talk in the present tense as much as possible, just to let Andrea know - as far as she could know anything at this point - that she was still included. And even though she was pallid and thin, she looked so peaceful that she might have been sleeping, just waiting for the right word or thought or action to wake her up, and then she'd look at him and recognize him and smile, and he'd feel that familiar sensation of her feather-soft thoughts pressing themselves onto his consciousness, that unique bond of contact that had been silent for so long.

He'd already released Lana's hand, leaving it in Andrea's, and now he wrapped his arm around Lana and rubbed up and down her shoulder.

[Svetlana Ustinov]

Her cheeks flushed a pale golden-green, and she found herself thankful that their backs were to the door. Lana wasn't about to check over her shoulder to see if the Doctor was still there, especially not now.

It wasn't worth ruining the moment with her fear.

She did glance up at Alex and cast him a softly adoring look before tilting her head back towards Andrea. Her other hand moved to clasp Andrea's hand between her own, gently stroking it and wishing she dared to reach out with her gift. If only to warm her for a moment or two.

"Sometimes, Aleksanderr...I think you talk too much." Lana replied brightly. "Andrea reminds me very much of my best friend back in Saint Petersburg. Katia has the same sweet face and dark hair...I was thinking of calling and inviting her to visit this summer. I think she'd be delighted to meet you, Andrea. You would like her very much...but she does talk a great deal, and rather quickly at that."

[Doktor Klaus Heidegger]

Klaus listened idly as the mutant couple talked to Andrea and to each other. The doctor kept his eyes locked on Lana, hoping she would betray some sort of sign that she was a mutant. It seemed the pair was intent on keeping their backs to him.

It didn't matter. He had cameras hidden to cover every angle of every room in every wing of his facility. Nothing would stay hidden.

"I will leave you to your visit. Alex, I trust your friend knows the rules for visitations at the Jozua Clinic. Enjoy your time with your sister."

[Alex Kaine]

Alex threw an icy look back over his shoulder. Realizing Heidegger probably wasn't going to leave without some sort of acknowledgment, he settled on a very curt, "Thanks."

He waited until the door clicked shut. Then he opened his senses to the electrical currents running through the room. There was a lot of complex activity right in front of him, of course - the medical instruments that were monitoring every aspect of Andrea's biology. There were also the lights, the air conditioning, the radio, simple and steady rhythms of alternating current racing back and forth through the wall wiring like millions of tiny heartbeats. But there were other lines of electricity with more gravity, more nuance - data streams flooding through isolated circuits from a dozen points around the room. Some of them connected the medical instruments to remote monitors so the staff could respond to any sudden changes in her condition. Others... couldn't be so easily explained.

Alex dropped his arm from around Lana's shoulder. "Can you give me a second, Lana?"

He stepped away from Andrea's bedside and closed his eyes, rubbing at the bridge of his nose as if fighting off a headache. But he was searching out those data streams, isolating them from the rest of the circuits in the room. The connections were delicate, not designed for high voltages, so theoretically it shouldn't be too difficult to--

The lights overhead flickered, though with the sunlight beating in through the window, it hardly mattered. More importantly, Alex's localized power surge had just burned out all the covert cameras and sensors in the room - at least, all the ones he'd been able to find.

He rubbed at his temples, eyes still closed. Now he really did have a headache. "Okay," he said, "we should be able to talk a little more freely now."

[Andrea Kaine]

While Alex's back was still turned, Andrea took in a long, slow breath and opened her eyes. They were large and dark, just like Alex's. Her head lolled to one side, but her eyes unerringly found Lana's and held them with a vice grip.

[Svetlana Ustinov]

Her hands still on Andrea's as the girl opened her eyes, her head tilted oddly off to one side. Her gaze was focused and gripping, dark eyes holding her chestnut gaze captive.

Lana's fingers moved gently across the back of Andrea's hand once more as she spoke without moving her eyes.

"Aleksander, smotret...look."

[Alex Kaine]

Alex turned quickly, and his breath caught. No, it wasn't the first time it had happened, but each and every time he couldn't help but wonder, hope, pray that this one might be the time she really woke up.

He crossed to Lana's side and passed a hand over Andrea's eyes. They didn't react - didn't even blink. Alex let the hope float away like a half-imagined image in the clouds.

"She does that sometimes," he said quietly. "I don't know if she sees us, or if maybe she's sensing us on some other level. It usually means she's about to go into a trance."

Mutation was a gift - Alex believed that with every cell in his body - but he knew it could also be a burden. Andrea was a telepath. Not an altogether strong one - she could sense emotions and intentions well enough, but to read the finer nuances of another person's thoughts, anything beyond the noisy impulses at the surface, took a great deal of familiarity. Alex had been an open book to her. They'd even learned they could communicate - Alex could put his thoughts at the surface where she could read them easily, and she could press her own mind onto his with such delicate grace that sometimes it was difficult to tell where he ended and she began. It wasn't until she was taken away from him that he realized how much she'd been tempering him, soothing his anger, pulling him out of his brooding spells.

But then there had been the trances. They came on her without warning, sometimes in the middle of a sentence. Her eyes would lose focus - or, rather, they'd focus on things no one else could see. Her movements would become slow, deliberate, disjointed, as if she were hearing commands and obeying them. And her speech... strings of words that made grammatical sense but no other kind, as if she were trying to describe what she saw in the only way she knew how. And as it went on, she would approach a point of clarity, and she would say things that made sense but were things she couldn't possibly know, things about the past, the present, or future, cryptic but unswervingly accurate, and her excitement would build as she approached some point of epiphany -

And then she would collapse into violent seizures. Seconds, sometimes minutes. Once she was unconscious for four hours. That was when their foster parents had finally called Jericho.

Alex had told Lana as much of this as he could bear to tell. Now he held Lana close, leaning on her for support as much as he was supporting her.

"It's okay, Andrea," he said. "Do you have something to tell us?"

[Andrea Kaine]

Andrea stared at Lana in silence. Her breath was still slow and steady, like a sleeping person. After three breaths, she spoke.

"Moonlight. The golden light of the harvest moon. The earth is your mother. Your father..."

Her eyebrows knit together as if in concentration, and she squinted as if she were looking into a great light.

"You reflect your father."

[Svetlana Ustinov]

Lana lightly leaned against the bed, freeing one hand from Andrea's to wind around Alex's waist. The air felt suddenly thick even as the sun slipped behind a whisp of a cloud, dimming the light in the room for several moments. It was...portentous, to put it mildly. Perhaps forbidding?

The blonde blinked, growing perfectly still and forgetting to breathe as Andrea spoke. First, truth, regarding her mother, and the golden light of the harvest moon she was born under. But then Andrea paused, gazing at her as if she were glowing to brightly to see properly, stopped in midsentence about her father.

Someone she tried very hard not to think about as fear slid down her spine and made her shiver.

"You reflect your father."

Fingers tightened their hold on Alex's t-shirt at his waist, as tension rose to engulf her slender frame. "But that...that's not possible. I'm nothing like my father...not even my gifts are similar. At all. I...I'm not...like him. I cannot reflect him..." she whispered, chestnut eyes wide as the golden fleck of her irises began to shimmer.

The sun returned from its sojourn behind the cloud, filling the room with its brilliance and warmth, but unable to allay the fear that tightened Lana's throat.

[Alex Kaine]

When Andrea entered one of her trances, you never knew what she was going to say. It just happened. And then you had to figure out what to do with it.

Alex rubbed his hand up and down Lana's arm. "Lana, Lana, it's okay," he said. "A lot of the things Andrea says don't make sense to me, either. Don't worry about it."

But it bothered him more than it should have that Andrea had chosen that subject - no, whatever was driving her mutation right now chose it. She was only trying to put words to what she was seeing.

"Andrea, I... look, you know I don't like to ask you things when you're in a trance. Lana hasn't been able to get in touch with her little brother in St. Petersburg. Do you know anything about him?"

[Andrea Kaine]

Andrea's eyes moved to a point on the wall between Alex and Lana. "The boy in the castle hears whispers from the land of dreams," she replied.

[Svetlana Ustinov]

As Andrea moved her gaze, Lana tried to take a deep breath and center herself again, but failed miserably at it. Alex's hand on her arm was about the only thing keeping her anchored, and she turned to bury her face against his shoulder for several moments.

That finally helped, and this time she didn't question the effect he had on her. She was just thankful (for perhaps the hundredth time) that she'd found him. Or rather, that he'd found her...but that was a fairly trivial detail in the moment.

Lana tilted her head back and looked between Alex and Andrea as he spoke, turning her attention fully to Andrea as he asked about Piotr. She'd been worried sick over him lately and if there was anything the girl's gift could tell them, she'd be grateful. "Boy? Castle? Oh thank God...that's present tense. He must be ok. Never thought of our house as a castle though...it is really big, however."

Shifting a little, she paused before continuing. "Anything else about my parents, Andrea? You made it sound very important earlier."

[Andrea Kaine]

Andrea still stared into the distance somewhere beyond the wall, or perhaps into a distance where there were no walls of any kind. Her eyes flickered from side to side as if she were reading something.

"Silence," she whispered. "Silence. Silence where there should be a voice. They took his voice. They took everything. But silence will have its revenge. Silence kills. The reckoning. The reckoning comes!"

[Alex Kaine]

The distress in Andrea's voice was like spears of ice through Alex's chest. He'd heard her speak of the reckoning before. He didn't know what it was, but whenever it came up, it was a bad sign.

Alex caught her hand and pressed it up against his chest. "Andrea... Andrea, it's all right. We're here, nothing's going to happen."

[Andrea Kaine]

A sprinkling of sweat stood out across her peaked brow, and her eyes were wide with desperation.

"Gods and devils marching... streets are burning... the armored ones lay waste to where the children play, with swords of fire and chains of steel. The mother and child... the mother and child..."

Tears burst from the corners of her eyes, and she began to writhe in her bed with her free hand beating against her chest.

"The dragon waits to devour them both... No! No, no, no!"

[Alex Kaine]

"Oh, God!"

It was the same sinking feeling of helplessness every time the visions tormented her. Alex was on the outside, and she was trapped inside her own mind by images he couldn't comprehend or combat in any way.

Desperately, he grabbed her around the back and held her against his chest, trying to stop the convulsions. "Andrea, it's okay, it's okay..."

He turned his head, pressing it against his sister's, and tried to catch Lana's eye. "Lana, get a nurse, they can give her something to make her sleep again. Please!"

[Svetlana Ustinov]

If there was an upside to growing up with a father around whom you had to walk as if on eggshells, it was that you learned control very early.

Lana shifted slightly, lowering the railing so Alex had easier access to hold his sister close. Catching his panicked gaze, she gently shook her head and replied in a soft, measured tone. "Let me try first...I think the drugs might harm her while she's this caught up in her own mind."

Catching Andrea's flailing hand in both of her own, Lana half-closed her eyes and concentrated. Warmth and energy built in her hands, making them glow a soft gold. With a very gentle touch, she pushed the energy into Andrea, reassuring her without words that she was safe, and wrapping her in a comfortable, tender warmth.

It was a trick her mother had taught her, one that worked without fail to calm her little brother and ward off the spirits that often plagued and overwhelmed his still-developing mind. She could only wait and hope it would work similarly for Andrea.

[Andrea Kaine]

Andrea thrashed in Alex's arms with far more strength than she looked like she ought to possess, and her eyes had begun to roll back in her head, a telltale sign of a violent seizure. "The dragon... the draGON... the dragon..."

The light from Lana's hands leeched into Andrea's skin, and she gave one last desperate sob that shook her entire body, but then she was quiet, taking trembling but steady breaths, and she slowly eased back down against her bed.

[Alex Kaine]

Alex gently released his sister and let her sink into the mattress. He looked up at Lana, wide-eyed.

"How... how did you that?"

[Svetlana Ustinov]

Lana managed a gentle smile and a soft sigh as she slowed the rush of warmth from a flood to a gentle trickle, keeping a hold of Andrea's hand for the time being. Blinking as she fully opened her eyes, she blushed a bit and shrugged.

"I'm not entirely sure, to be honest. Its...a trick my mother taught me. It always helps calm Piotr and his nightmares, because the spirits he can see and hear can sometimes be too much for him to deal with. Its just warmth and light energy...sort of saying 'you're ok, you're safe' but without words. That's the best way I can describe it."

[Andrea Kaine]

The tension slowly disappeared from Andrea's gaunt frame, and she sighed deeply. Whatever vision had been tormenting her seemed to have gone.

"Lana..."

Her voice was quiet, almost a whisper. When she spoke again, it was in Russian.

"Your mother is the earth. Your father, the sun. And you are the moon. You turn your face toward your mother, but you reflect your father. When you see him, he will tell you the truth, and you will have to choose your path."

[Svetlana Ustinov]

Freeing one hand, Lana brushed a damp lock of hair away from Andrea's cheek. The words spun around in her mind and forced her heart to feel as if it were going to pound out of her chest.

She didn't want to see her father. She didn't want to talk to him. He hated her...what...what could he possibly have to say that would engender a choice as grave as Andrea's words portended?

Swallowing hard, she translated the words for Alex as she looked up at him, her eyes slightly tight around the edges. After several moments, she managed a smile and reached for his hand with her free one.

[Alex Kaine]

Alex could only watch in wonder. He'd never heard Andrea speak another language before, never known it was possible in her trance state. He wanted to ask Lana what she'd said, but he knew that could wait. This was a personal moment between them - Lana had forged that connection, and she deserved to own it.

They formed a triangle now, Andrea's hand in Lana's, Lana's in Alex's, Alex's in Andrea's. There was an eloquence in the silence that filled the room, a poignancy that forced Alex to blink away the stinging in his eyes.

After a few long minutes, Andrea was sleeping again to the mechanical rhythm of the medical monitors.

[Doktor Klaus Heidegger]

Klaus entered the surveillance room and looked over the shoulder of the woman on duty.

"Get me the feed on D3LPH1."

"We have the feed up until about 10 or 15 minutes ago."

Klaus frowned. "Why?"

"Something shorted the surveillance. We're getting snatches of noise, though. Sounds like the Magic 8 Ball is freaking out her visitors."

Klaus sighed. "I'll head back down there. Get me the feed up until the devices shorted."

He reviewed the situation--Lana turning an odd sort of color and Alex stepping aside and rubbing his nose before it all went black.

"I bet my lab coat he shorted the feed so we wouldn't spy on him. I hope he didn't short out anything else. Why wasn't I notified?"

The security guard shrugged her shoulders. "The Chief has maintenance trying to solve the issue without the guests knowing. Of course, if one of them caused the mess, they know anyway. Boss just knows how you like to play close to the vest."

Klaus nodded. "Very well. I'll see to the visitors personally. Let me know when the surveillance is back online."

The doctor swept out of the room and headed down the hallway towards the room he had only just left. Alex didn't trust him, so he would have to choose his words very very carefully.

[Alex Kaine]

Half an hour hardly seemed like enough time, even while Andrea was sleeping. Alex filled her in on the things going on at the House - that Anna was expecting, that they had a new resident named Julian who could turn into a wolf, that Jamie was having trouble with nightmares again, but apparently Tess and Anna had helped her through it. He also talked about the things he and Lana were doing together, and mention of the zoo reminded Alex about the time he and Andrea had gone there with their foster parents, and Andrea had tried to communicate telepathically with the bonobos and had insisted she'd made contact with one of the little ones who had come right up to her on the other side of the glass, but Alex wasn't sure he believed her...

Time ran fast. Far too fast. And even though their half hour was up, Alex didn't want to leave yet.

[Svetlana Ustinov]

As Alex finally fell silent, sighing deeply as he stared at his watch, she quietly let go of Andrea's hand. With great care, she tucked the sheets and blankets around the young woman as she slept, her breath in perfect rhythm with the machines.

"Aleksanderr..." Lana said softly, slipping her arms around his waist as she came up behind him. Resting her chin on his shoulder, she simply held him for several moments before speaking again.

"...our time is up, love. I know you don't wish to leave, but Andrea needs to rest. We'll come back soon."

[Doktor Klaus Heidegger]

The Doctor stood in the doorway and cleared his throat.

"Alex, are things all right here?"

Klaus entered the room and took the chart, marking notes as he checked the machines and checking the various data feeds.

"No problems with the equipment? No episodes with Andrea?"

He kept his voice even, but concerned. Nothing about the concern was truly genuine of course--Klaus was much more concerned about potential loss of data than Andrea's comfort--but he reckoned one of the two visitors might be fooled.

[Alex Kaine]

Alex's well-marinated contempt for the man made it easy to look into his face and lie.

"No, no problems at all. Why? Was there a problem on your end?"

[Svetlana Ustinov]

If she'd been a feline of any sort, she'd have hissed at the Doctor's convenient reappearance. She'd have called it strange, perhaps, if Alex had not told her stories, and if she had not grown up with a healthy fear of hospitals instilled in her by her mother.

There was something else, however, that lingered at the fringes of her mind, but Lana just couldn't put a finger on it.

As Alex turned and replied, Lana left an arm around his waist and tucked herself into his side. A perceptible, obvious movement, followed by the flip of her platinum curls back over her shoulder. Her chin lifted as she regarded the Doctor with wide eyes, chestnut irises flecked with gold, her gaze lingering and taking in the details of his appearance.

"Aleksanderr, vee do not wish to tax yourr seesterr. As she ees sleeping peacefully, let us take our leave." Lana purred softly, her accent deliberately thick as she tilted her head back to Alex and did not deign to offer Heidegger another moment of her attention. Slender fingers reached up to trace Alex's jaw as she sighed softly.

[Doktor Klaus Heidegger]

Klaus glanced over at them. "There are never problems on my end. In science, in medicine, in life there are never problems. There is only the continual weeding out of bad solutions, which means the correct one is more visible as the chaff is separated from the wheat."

Klaus finished with the monitors and set the clipboard back in its place at the foot of the bed. He squeezed Andrea's hand, and held it for a moment.

"Andrea's gift makes her situation precarious. We do not know if her psyche allows her to separate reality from the phenomena that occurs due to her power. Curtailing her gift without curtailing her ability to comprehend reality is difficult. It is not impossible. When we can give her the medical advantage to allow her to harness her power, she will be able to do the rest on her own."

He looked at the teenaged couple with hidden interest. He hoped to test a theory before they left his facility.

[Alex Kaine]

As Heidegger took Andrea's hand in his own, Alex unconsciously squeezed Lana's. He should have just walked out the door. But Heidegger's self-righteous soliloquy screamed out for an answer.

"Dr. Heidegger, can I ask you something?" he said. "Of all the solutions you've tried since Andrea came in here over a year ago... has any of them ever actually helped her?"

[Doktor Klaus Heidegger]

"One we have tried, one we know will work but have not done."

Klaus motioned to the chairs in the corner, indicating Alex and Lana should sit.

"Alex, the reason I have not released your sister is that these two treatments will not do much to really improve her quality of life. I will not perform them without your written consent. I am not sure you will even approve to begin with."

[Alex Kaine]

This was news to Alex, and his defiant belligerence all but evaporated. He hated Jericho, hated Heidegger and his supercilious insistence on treating mutation like some sort of disease, but if there was a chance he could somehow help Andrea in spite of himself...

Alex caught Lana's eyes, and that was enough to tell her he had to hear Heidegger out. And if the doctor just wanted to use Andrea as a guinea pig for his own self-gratification, Alex wanted to be damn sure he was stopped.

Alex took his seat, still hand-in-hand with Lana. "Okay," he said. "What kind of treatment?"

[Doktor Klaus Heidegger]

"The first option is the most straight forward. I can issue her a suppression collar that she will wear at all times in order to keep her powers from overwhelming her. They are uncomfortable, and will not allow her to lower her chin while she wears it. Extended time wearing it can cause bruising and other elements of discomfort. She will still need to come to the clinic from time to time to have the collar maintained, during which time her powers will most likely overwhelm her. The collar might give her a chance to control her power, but we have not yet been able to make a collar that does not totally suppress mutant gifts."

Klaus looked at Andrea and then back to her brother. "The other treatment is more old-fashioned. We can lobotomize her. We have isolated the area of her brain where her powers function. We can remove the brain tissue related to her powers with surgery. However, she will lose quite a bit of brain function in the process. We aren't sure her quality of life would improve much from where it is now, outside of the total lack of psychic episodes."

Klaus looked at Alex very seriously. "I am sorry to put forth these options to you. I understand if you are angry that I did not share this information with you at first. Just know that I consider it a slipshod effort on my part if this facility uses less than optimal cures for its patients."

[Alex Kaine]

Alex bowed his head, his face shrouded by his mop of black hair. He felt a sinking sensation in his chest not unlike when he'd first been told that Andrea was comatose, that she would be bed-ridden for the foreseeable future until Jericho found a solution to her problem. And these were the solutions.

He felt Lana close her other hand over his, a welcoming presence of support. Alex took a deep breath and found the strength to meet Heidegger's eyes.

"Lobotomy's out," he said. "I won't do it. She lived with her gifts before. She'll find a way to do it again."

He took another breath and looked over at Andrea, now sleeping peacefully amid the banks of machinery.

"Did you say you've tried the suppression collar before?"

[Doktor Klaus Heidegger]

"No, we have not tried it on her. We have used it on other psychic mutants with their permission. They say it's like someone suddenly putting a pair of earmuffs on them. It gets quiet very fast. For some it's a relief. For others, it's like not being able to sleep when you're used to hearing the train a few yards from your window at night."

Klaus indicated Andrea with a gesture. "That's for people with healthy minds. Healthy psyches. Andrea seems to be perturbed by her power. I'm afraid that the sudden psychic silence might fragment her more. It is a risk we will take if you deem it worthwhile, but even if the collar helps, we will have to keep her here for a month or two to undergo therapy and a few other tests to make sure she can distinguish reality any better without her power's interference."

Klaus rubbed the bridge of his nose with his fingers. "I know how you feel about this clinic, Alex. And how you must feel about the collars. No mutant I know likes the idea of them--not even the MCU, who must use them to arrest mutant criminals. I impress upon you the necessity and hidden advantages of them now. Just know that it is not at all a permanent fix, and the collar will leave a mark on your sister if she wears it consistently."

[Svetlana Ustinov]

A mark in more ways than one, Lana mused silently, fingers clasped tightly around Alex's hand. It was all she could do - all she could offer without revealing her abilities in front of the doctor.

The seemingly caring and good doctor...somehow, that just didn't fit. While it wasn't a gift of her mutation by any means, her instincts were sound, and this just didn't sit right with Lana. She wished, not for the first time, that her mother was nearby...she would know what questions to ask to prove her instincts correct. It was even possible that Yelena's abilities could help Andrea to a greater degree than Lana's own simple, calming influence.

Sighing softly, she lifted Alex's hand between her own and kissed the back of it. "This bears some serious thought, Aleksanderr...such a decision cannot be made lightly. You need to ask yourself if Andrea would wish to wear the collar at all. Perhaps further discussion with the good doctor can be had next week when we visit again?" Lana said, her voice quiet but more thickly accented than usual.

[Alex Kaine]

Sometimes when you were facing a decision between two options that both seemed wrong, your mind looped in on itself in a tortured cycle of contingencies and unanswerable questions, and you could hardly hear anything over the roar of your own thoughts feeding back like an overloaded circuit. Most of what Lana had said was in there, somewhere. But hearing it made it easier to sift the thoughts from the noise.

The fact was, if wearing a collar could return Andrea to some level of clarity, Alex would consider that worth it. Maybe that anchor in reality would help her to weather her psychic episodes and eventually free her from her dependence on Jericho entirely. Or maybe it would create a whole new kind of dependence. Alex wished he could ask her, but there was no telling whether she could understand the question, or if she was even capable of giving an answer. Was her gift the source of her torment, or was it the only outlet she had left?

Alex met Lana's eyes gratefully, and then he shifted his attention back to the doctor. "I have to think this over," he said. "Andrea... sometimes Andrea did try to shut the visions out. But I know she also thought they were a part of her. She said she'd be sorry if they ever left her completely."

Alex turned his hand over and rubbed his thumb in circles over Lana's hand. "I'm definitely going to have to think about it."

[Doktor Klaus Heidegger]

"That is a good thing. Decisions made in haste are often decisions we regret."

Klaus stood and crossed to the door, holding it open for Alex and Lana.

"In the meantime, know that we are trying our best to find your sister a true solution to her problem."

It was somewhat true. If Andrea could reach out and make her powers something that happened at-will, it would benefit Klaus much more than what he was working with at the moment.

The talk paid off. Klaus could continue to experiment while Alex tortured himself over the decision. Even after the collar, Klaus could hold her for a while longer to see how much Andrea knew about what he was doing to her.

If she did not know, no harm done. If she did know, then she would have to go Below.

Until then, he could afford once again to take his time. And come up with a story about what happened to Andrea in the event she suddenly disappeared. But with The Brotherhood, Vanguard, and a numerous other groups of people set against Jericho, it would be simple enough to blame her disappearance on an abduction: the Jozua Clinic was a hospital, not a high-security facility.

"We will see you next week. Do not feel like you have to make that your deadline. You must be as confident in your decision as you would be in anything else. Good luck to you."