Griplines: Part Six

by Brenda Jean Carlson

She was, for all intents and purposes, out of the game for the duration. 'Course that comparison woulda' made a bunch more sense, Darlin, if you weren't makin' me break into a bathroom to get to ya.'

It would also have helped if the person he was busting in on wasn't most likely passed out on the floor of the shower. And that was talking *best* case scenario.

"Neena? Come on an' talk to me, girl. This ain't exactly the time to be playin' games." He eased the door open further: habitually respectful of the privacy that two and half years together had taught him he'd better respect if he meant to keep their friendship on healthy ground. The stench of blood continued to grow stronger as he entered the misty room, however, and Domino still didn't answer his call.

He gritted his teeth, pushing the wooden slab back against the pumpkin colored tiling.

The room waiting for him stank of strong shampoo and misery. The air was heavy with moisture - coating the mirror and all the other metal surfaces with an opaque, foggy film. He grimaced and turned on the fan with a harsh flick of his thumb, noting the dripping foot hanging over the edge of the tub before yanking the curtain all the way back to the wall. The sight waiting for him there on the white tile made him curse. Loudly and Explicitly. The awkwardly balanced foot slid a few centimeters, then finally slipped off the edge.

'Damn it all...you're too good at acting out...' The woman in the bottom of the tub was sprawled out like some kind of boneless mannequin. Her skin was a sickly gray, and blood - flowing from a nasty looking laceration on her hair line - was running steadily down over her face, trailing like red tears off her chin. He cursed again and squatted beside her, anxious fingers reaching out to probe for a pulse. Relief crashed like ocean breaker when he found one. He shook his head as he leaned back, sighing in exasperation. "Ya know, if you really didn't want ta go to breakfast, there were easier ways of gettin' the point across..."

Domino didn't grace him with a reply. For that matter, she didn't as much as twitch. 'What the heck is goin' on here?' This wasn't the Neena he knew. She tended to be a very in control, if somewhat irritable, drunk. Besides, she hadn't seemed tipsy when he'd seen her storm into the bathroom earlier... 'Breathin' and heart rate seem steady... So why aren't'cha wakin' up?' His hand moved up to carefully probe the gash on her forehead. "Well your luck's holding up some, at least - ya probably ain't gonna need stitches..."

That didn't mean that she wouldn't end up with a blasted miserable concussion, though.

'Start with what ya can...get her dry and warmed up.' Shock and death by drowning, he could prevent. He frowned at the red-tinged ceramic beneath her: 'Wish I knew how long ago you decided ta play chicken with the tile.' Head wounds were always so tricky to mess with - and he had no idea how much blood she's actually lost before he'd come in. 'Do what you can...worry later.' The first thing he had to do was get her conscious.

"Come on Neena - wake up and start cursin'. I promise not ta hold it against ya." He kept his words cajoling, praying that she'd repay the act with a show of her almost legendary temper. Heck, if she actually obeyed him by opening those damn stubborn eyes of hers, he'd gladly offer to clean and restock all her weapon supplies. And given the size of the aforementioned collection, that was no piddly gesture.

It took the sacrifice of one of the pristine towels atop the toilet to get her face clean; another one and a washcloth made a hasty wrap-compress for her head. The last towel on the stack he used to scrub off what he could of the visible skin before he lifted her up - supporting her head and neck carefully as he hefted her from the slow-drying surface. The trip to the unmade bed took only seconds, but a steady trail of blood and water stubbornly followed him across the carpet. Easing her down, of course, required a bit of jostling, which he was elated to see caused her to toss fitfully and moan. "That's it darlin'," he coaxed, "come on, wake up an' talk ta me."

Unfortunately, his companion wasn't into being agreeable. Dom fell back into silence again as he covered her with a blanket. Still, she was moving around instead of dead still - an encouraging start. "Wonder if you brought your communicator..." He reached for her bag, fervently hoping she had as he dug through the main pocket. 'Gonna need to get the warehouse to send a transport...' No way was he gonna risk carrying her in on his bike in this condition. He sighed in relief as he spotted the all too familiar green first-air pouch, but then jerked around in shock at the sound of a snapping wooden door frame.

Dark eyes widened in recognition seconds before a massive fist slammed into his face.

------

Twenty-two years -- an incomprehensible number. Two hundred and sixty some odd months, give or take a few mathematically. Eight thousand and twenty-eight days, since the world he'd built and existed in for so long had crumbled.

Somehow the figures - for all their logic - didn't quite encompass the agony.

"Harry just sent up the last of the coordinates: forty or so more minutes until we land. That's assuming we have to put down at the local headquarters. He's gonna make a call to the warehouse and see if there's a place around there we can dock at directly." Elisha's voice was quiet yet factual as she gave her report - providing him with the barest necessary information and then leaving him to his own thoughts again. A small part of his conscious mind was grateful for the action. He recognized and appreciated the work that she was putting into reigning in her own shocked response.

Especially since, at the moment, his own were already more than he could handle.

"Do you have the greeting file duplicates?" The verbal part of the introduction for this first meeting with Nathan Summers was - per protocol - memorized verbatim. The rest of it was made up of a hasty scan of both sides of Andy's medallion, as well as several far less legible letters of what he assumed was hand scrawled Askani.

Elisha nodded in affirmation and tapped several buttons on the main terminal - retrieving, and then tossing him the small disk that popped out. "We lucked out - Tryp was at the house. Said he'd 'sensed' something coming..." They exchanged knowing looks at this comment: the younger man's tendency to downplay his prescience was well known to both of them.

The fact that he was actually admitting to his powers didn't promise the happiest events up ahead.

"The disadvantages of your granddaughter being in love with a bloody MAGE..." He winced, 'woah - getting a little bit cranky there Chance?' If he'd had any kind of luck at all, the muttered reply would have slipped by his companion unnoticed. 'Not that it actually will though, off course.' Sharp eyes pinned him in his seat as they simultaneously turned an almost tarnished gray with unease. He forced himself to smile at her - albeit weakly. "At least we know they'll be taking good care of Em and Dres, right?" Besides, it only *figured* his life would wrap back around to those damn unshakable Askani.

<My life as an avoider of Nathan Summers.> The thought made him choke back another laugh. It would have made a darn good book title - or at least that's what the small portion of his brain allowed to really freak out kept hysterically insisting. Natauni was simply NEVER going to let him live this down. She'd been pushing this contact for months, ever since the timeline conflict first passed out of existence. 'And of course I had to fight it all the way - always avoiding big changes, and still half indignant over what happened to Mayna...' He cursed under his breath, 'Why couldn't she have just shown me the damn blasted picture? All this time I thought this was another way of mourning Andrew...'

Well, he'd certainly regained his knack for honest enlightenment, now, hadn't he?

Mayna wasn't such a string bean anymore. The fact didn't exactly classify as analytical. Still it was the first stream of conscious thought he'd managed to assemble since he'd opened the file now in his lap. She'd only been fourteen back in the days when he'd buried and mourned her: just on the edge of puberty with his newly acquired height and lanky, agile carriage. The woman standing in conversation with Nathan Summers now, though, had the full lines of maturity to go with her unmistakable face.

And if the picture was any good, Jai'maena... no 'Domino,' had inherited the same full curves as her mother.

------

"By the Light, you're bonded to him." The words were softly spoken - as if she barely dared as much as whisper them. Natauni stared at the carefully schooled features of the albino woman across from her with a mixture of real terror and awed disbelief. The statement seemed almost...well, blasphemous. That, in part accounted for her uncommon slip back into mother Hakanian. She couldn't take back or discount the words though: the tight chain of threads she'd seen overlapping in her friend's mind was unmistakable.

She drew a shaky breath before continuing, "Well, this is certainly one way to create a legacy."

Jai'maena Danton looked back at her apathetically, posture and facial expression utterly undisturbed. Her mouth might have been a little tight around the edges, but otherwise she looked completely unfeeling about the entire matter. That fact twisted something hard and uncomfortable in Natauni Copeland's stomach, as the blond haired woman was forced to acknowledge how completely Jai'maena had come to resemble Karysha. Domino had certainly had developed her mother's talent for faking mannerisms, and yet the childish face of the girl she'd once been kept raising itself in her friend's mind's eye...

What else was there to say? Past and present sometimes made for one bloody disturbing specter...

'The only difference here's the shielding'. This was acknowledged with a fair amount of candor. Karysha Danton had been her Godmother, after all - the one to train her in the greater use of her powers - as well as stir her eventual interest in genetic engineering. The physical similarity between the now deceased older woman and Jai'maena was certainly undeniable, but where the telepathic realm came into question it stopped. For no matter how talented Dom may have been at self-concealing, she still remained, genetically speaking, an augmenter.

And an augmenter - especially a half trained one - was no match for a fully trained omega telepath. 'Especially when,' she admitted wryly, 'that telepath is as nosy as me.'

"Did you find what you needed?" Domino's voice was very carefully modulated when she spoke. Looking down, Natauni noted worriedly that her friend's hands were clenched so tight they were a ghastly gray-ish pink; her veins pulsed roughly just below the thin skin. She could also dimly sense Mayna's swiftly blooming headache - though whether it was from the unaccustomed deep-scan, the emotional toll, or just too many days without sleep, she couldn't say. She fought the urge to lay a sympathetic hand atop the tightened muscles, knowing Dom would only stiffen up over such an action. By now the one thing she'd learned definitively was that Jai'maena Danton *wasn't* looking for comfort.

"The first hand details gave me some new things to look at. Your mom was probably right on her mark when she said your survival had to do with all your offset hormones." She kept her voice very analytical: never for a moment considering admitting that she'd gained very little knowledge she hadn't already known by this point in time. She wasn't stupid enough to pretend she didn't know the cost of what Dom had let her do - and that was only further heightened by the reality that her friend had been the one to broach the subject.

The simple fact was it had taken GUTS for Dom to ask for the memory-scan.

Of course, a small part of her admitted going along with it had been less than completely moral. Not when she'd known the chances of it being worth the effort were so slim. Still, she reminded herself, if there'd been the slightest CHANCE what Dom had seen could help... It wasn't something that could be ignored. Given that fact, they'd also both known that Dom had only made the offer in order to spare herself the chance of having to submit a direct request later...

It wasn't a great concession, but it did spare her best friend a little dignity.

"Dresden's gonna be waking up and hungry for lunch soon. You'd think he was still a month or two old, what with him and his flonquing 'nap' schedule." Dom rose from the table with a burst of anxious energy, doing her best to move the conversation onto safer, less emotional ground.

It was something Tauni refused to let her do, however. 'Flonq?' now that was a term she hadn't heard in a while. The inadvertent expletive only convinced her further of what she'd already seen. She sighed deeply, "You're BONDED to him, Mayn. And you haven't told him a blasted thing, have you?" The other woman's silence was answer enough: '"No, of course you haven't - you CAN'T - and there's no way to stop the rest of it from coming out once you've started..." She groaned aloud. "You had to go and dip your hands in the bloody time-stream pot, didn't you?"

As if she hadn't done a good enough job showing how rocky that particular road was.

"It's my problem. And mine to deal with. Stick to things you can control." Dom's clear disallowance of any further progression of the conversation had been sharp - and a starkly clear warning to drop it... 'Andy, damn you. You picked a lousy time to up and die. I mean since this blasted family seems to be having so much trouble staying away from the 'other time travelers' you could have stuck around. She'd have given nearly anything for his acerbic commentary right now. 'Besides, even when I wanted to SHOOT you, you always carried the Pepto Bismol..."

That had been no small commodity, not in her life. Or his.

Truthfully, Dom's attitude hadn't surprised her even then - she'd seen the pattern of avoidance often enough in those first months. Though being used to it hadn't helped much in providing practical answers. "The King of the no-touch camp, and Mayna says to 'ignore' it." Even vocalizing the words made her nauseous. The only thing more amazing than the fact Dom had come up with that particular method of coping with her love life was the reality that both of them had actually *lived* it for the following ten years.

"Damn it, Jai'amena, why don't you come with a migraine prescription?"

No answers came, of course. At least not yet. She sighed and rubbed at weary eyes, checking her aerial map for the third time that hour. 'Four more hours till the airfield.' She had to call home based when she got there - no doubt Chance and her mom were having twin jersey cows because she still hadn't checked in. Her leg cramped angrily at her thigh level, causing her to wince as the muscles revolted. The burning was steadily getting worse - probably from the insetting infection in the shrapnel wounds. "Well Dom, you're not gonna like me suddenly storming in on your life like this...but then again you've got no choice.

This secret was finally gonna be UNSECRETED - and maybe she'd find time to get a *real life* again.

------

"Do yourself a favor, Jean, the next time you start having strange dreams, roll over and *go back to sleep.*" The unconscious girl on the biobed across the room made no answer, though her nurse wasn't really surprised at the fact...

In Jean Summers' opinion, this whole day was a walking advertisement for Unisom.

Dreams and visions - a gift of her mutancy. Thankfully they'd been a rare occurrence in the years since her powers emerged. Time travel was already enough of a introduction to the future...the rest she'd happily leave to other telepaths such as Xavier or Betsy. Of course, the 'dreams' she had experienced always served their purposes, 'Can't say it's not nice to have the extra insight.' Problem was, foreknowledge was also damn good for other things - most specifically driving up the stock value of the Tylenol corporation.' For all the advantages of presenscience, it was rather like being given scattered bits of a puzzle....

She felt as if someone just kept hurling code at her, without giving her any clue as to how to un-encrypt it.

"Never should have gotten out of bed this morning." She should have taken it as a warning from the Almighty and gone to ground. 'I mean you find out you're gonna be a grandmother, fine - go buy a damn pair of booties.' But no, she'd had to insist on coming out for a visit so she could mettle, and even worse, she'd been what could only be described as nauseatingly 'chirpy' about it. 'Another two hours of sleep Jean, would it have been too much to ask if it meant you'd escaped this flonquing headache?'

If this afternoon was a kind of penance for overeagerness, she'd definitely spent enough time in purgatory.

'Oh look on the bright side...you got to visit your son.' That was something she should be happy about, considering the fact that she and Scott hadn't been able to do more than talk with Nate over the phone in the last three months. Yes, her vision had been unsettling, but it has also provided a darn good excuse to get Scott to charter a plane. She smiled slightly, 'Never once turned down the chance to see my 'hardhead,'' You had to catch 'quality time' with your children as it came.

Besides, she admitted to herself wryly, if they'd waited any longer Nate would most likely have been gone when they arrived...

And if that had happened, she'd have missed her son's introduction to the anti-lassie.

'Ah yes, Dresden.' A charming mutt, really. Even if he did seem have an alarming tendency of making Nate homicidal. She had to admire the canine's loyalty to his mistress, even if his use of tact and openness toward communication left a lot to be desired. 'He's about as open to questions as a locked titanium vault. As easy to pin down as a shadow...'

Her mouth quirked slightly at her next thought. 'Now where do you think he got that from?'

"And then of course there's YOU." She looked down at her patient with a frustrated sigh. "I'd be lying if I said I wasn't anxious to meet you...but couldn't we have tried something a little simpler: like maybe a cup of coffee?" Again no answer came; she exhaled in exasperation, 'Well that was about as much help as one of those damn stainless steel bedpans.' She didn't mind introductions, really, but why did they always seem to have to come *this* way?

"Jean, Ma'am?" A cautious voice spoke from behind her. Sam was standing just inside the main medlab doors. The youth shifted nervously on his feet, looking from the bed to her, then back to the bed again, anxiously. A wash of pity swept over her as she gestured for the young man to enter. Sam had been the one to bring Emily in, after all, only to be all but chased out of medlab by her son. 'Everybody's on edge...and Nathan wasn't helping.' He been to out of it to fully appreciate how deterring three hundred pounds of irrational ex-mercenary could become.

'Well mine as well let him have his look...cause that's all I can give him, I cetrainly don't have answers.' "Come on in Sam. I could use a relief set of eyes for monitoring all the machines."

"So is she doin' any better?" Sam's kept his voice quiet as he approached the medb-station, as if he were afraid he was going to wake their sleeping patient. He studied the form on the bed soberly, questions brewing in the back of his eyes. Jean could sense his genuine concern for the girl, as well as the innate curiosity Emily's presence was stirring in all of them. 'Cable really shouldn't have blamed you, Gutherie. It's one hell of an open speculation.' She settled instead of a shrug and a tilt of her head.

"Same as before - weak but steady vitals. Whatever's happening inside her head, I can't tell you." She rubbed her forehead wearily, noting the way his jaw bunched at her diagnosis. "They said she was awake at first - can you tell me what happened? I mean, did she say anything that might help us figure out what caused this?"

The southerner shifted uncomfortably at the question. Sam seemed to weigh something for several seconds before he spoke. "She called out ta someone named 'Da'...'cept she didn't have an accent, so Ah doubt it meant the same as with someone like Terry..." Sam chewed his lower lip thoughtfully, . "Ma'am she psi-spoke just like you or Cable...an' she knew Ah was a mutant." He shrugged in helplessness. "That's it. Sorry, but doesn't seem like much help, at least not ta me."

Her eyebrows wrinkled. 'Fair enough.' It wasn't like anyone else around here could claim more. They'd known she was a telepath just by the nature of her injury. Still, Sam's admission had stirred up at least one interesting considerations. 'So she can recognize other mutants on sight...but what's the importance in that?' Had the girl been merely stating a fact, or was there something more to it? Either way, it added another list of questions to a group of them that was already compounding into quite a full-length novel.

'Well nothing I can do about figuring any of it out now...' She pushed the topic into the background in favor of something more in the present. "So has there been any new word on Nate or on the search for Domino?"

Sam shook his head. "Nothin'd changed...both still missin'. Scott said he's comin' back to the warehouse....and so are the others." The blond haired Kentuckian's face displayed his frustration. "We're runnin' outta places ta look...we're gonna need a new strategy..."

"Um...I hate ta burst in on the two of ye like this..." Terry's interjected voice cut off any further explanation Sam might have given. The redhead shrugged almost helplessly, "Jean, I'm afraid ye've got...a phone call?"

-------

There was something cold and wet dripping down the side of his face.

Patter, pat. Patter, patter. A steady staccato beat against his flesh. Gradually other sensory facts filled in the gaps; whatever it was, was cold, and if the smell was any indication, not anywhere near comfortably clean. He pried one eyelid slowly open, mind searching for the source of his waking. The room was nothing but moody black, making the effort seem disturbingly hollow. Another unidentified drop hit his face, making him shiver as it slithered off his chin.

'Oath - what the flonq...where am I?'

And what in Bright Lady was he sitting in?

Uprightness came without mental command, as wetness registered in over two thirds of his body. The icy shock of the sensation forced him backward, cursing as he scooted toward the center of the room. Automatic telepathic tendrils shot out in question, trying to identify his surroundings, only to find themselves swamped under by a telepathic sludge as thick as oatmeal . He groaned as he reached up to wipe his face with a sodden shirtsleeve, grimacing as he brushed the raw nerves of an obviously ripped-open forehead. 'Blood?' Must be. But where had he got it? 'Hotel... Was looking for...

*Logan.*'

He groaned again. The change in position had set the room spinning. Closing his eyes tightly, he forced himself to breathe out and not loose the contents of his stomach. He'd have to compliment the old man next time they met: he hadn't even seen that last blow coming. He tried again...a surrounding scan. Again, he was met with just a wash of static sludge.

His eyes narrowed: his powers seemed to be functional, but only in a short radius around him.

Rumble again. The sound of thunder. It was raining...the thud of constant drops hitting the roof. He lifted his head up to see a poorly patched ceiling - water dripped down out of an indecipherable sky. 'A flonquing flood...' He'd woken up in a puddle. The gradually focusing room showed the outlines of a mass of water pooled in one corner. He stared at the muck in front of him detachedly. This was definitely not a hotel.

Another drop hit his head. Then another again.

Domino. Dom. Next came the realization of absence. A clear image of her passed out on a bed solidified, and then the feel of her no longer underneath his hands. 'I thought I'd found her...' And he surely must have, for the mental siren was no longer howling in his head. The tight spasming ball of panic that had been unfurling for the past few hours had disappeared. Where was she, though? He couldn't sense her.

That fact alone should have re-jump-started his panic, and yet he felt nothing, just a bewildering blankness... "Don't worry, " A quiet voice interjected, "that's just the shock, a few more minutes, and I promise it'll all get clear again."

The sound had come literally out of nowhere. His neck and then his whole body found itself turning. She was sitting propped up in the far corner, against one of the back walls. "It's all right really; they just went a little heavy on the vodka." The soft voice was reassuring, and though he could barely see her, he sensed she smiled wryly before she continued. "Of course I'm afraid the accommodations leave a bit to be desired. I never much liked mud baths." He heard her give a weak laugh. "Remind me to talk to the caterer when we see him again."

"Where am ...Was ...where...she's not here..." The words found themselves stuttering slowly out over cracked lips. His mouth was suddenly unbearably dry, and he swallowed hard, but found no relief in the action.

She seemed to sense it. "Do you want some water?" He tried to answer yes, but could only nod. A warm pulse of comforting peace washed over him as she spoke again. "It's okay. Just stay put; it'll will wear off soon enough, I promise you..." She pushed herself slowly upright,then, using a hand to trace a path up and along the wall as she moved. He closed his eyes again. 'That's it... Just breathe and try not to puke your guts...'

She'd been right about the numb-headedness, he realized this by the time she'd retrieved the bucket and reached him. The thickness in his eyes and head was gradually receding, though his powers were still muted beyond the peripheral few feet around him. Shifting so that his legs were stretched out to the side, he reached out again, words and sentences finally forming to something that was half-understandable. "I'm Nathan...Cable. You can call me - where are we...I was in a hotel...and then here..."

She made a shushing noise as she squatted down besides him. "That's it. Drink. After that, you can try and make sense of the world."

A cup was placed to his lips, as a hand cradled the back of his head. The moisture was manna - sweet like wine. He suddenly couldn't get enough - his belly was cramping as he all but choked down mammoth swallows. "Woah there buddy." The cup was pulled back, "My nursing skills are limited - they don't include handling puking." He sipped at the cup more gradually till it was half empty, then handed it to her and watched her shake her head. "I've had my fill. Take what you need...but please, SLOWLY."

She sat in silence while he finished the offering. "You said your name was Cable? Well nice to meet you." His eyes were finally adjusted enough to see her features, and he gaped as she turned her head more clearly in his direction, unknowingly allowing the stream of light from the window above them to outline her features.

"Well not sure how it happened, but I guess we're cellmates now. Here's hoping that neither of us snore." She stuck out a hand in his general direction, "For the record, they call me..."

"Emily??"

back to BJ Carlson's stories | Dayspring archive | comicfic.net