The X-Project

Barely making it out of New York, Bart Jones goes to the only place he can think of with hopes of finding his daughter there. Kyle has to break the news to him.



The car pulled off to the side a few feet away from the start of the drive for the Xavier's school. Though Bart Jones thought, still coughing steadily, it had a new name these days. Damned if he could remember it. He shook hands with the driver - they'd barely made it out of New York together and the guy had offered to give him a lift - and knew he was probably never going to see the man again. Kindness from strangers in a time of need.

As the car drove away, Bart started hobbling down the path, keeping an exhausted eye out for any of the employees or students. His phone was useless, smashed to pieces, and he'd had no time to call ahead.

Kyle's 'patrol' of the grounds, once the sun was down, was pretty much just him and his night vision and constantly checking in with someone - usually Cain - via his comm. He'd found a grand total of two possums and a really stupid deer - not that any deer were very smart, but this one had been particularly Dumb, running towards Kyle instead of away.

He made another pass by the front gates just in time to see the headlights of a car pulling away, and a tall man walking up to the intercom box. He recognized - by smell first although it was changed by a healthy dose of fear, and then the tap-tap-tap of a cane, and then silhouette - that it was Angel's dad.

~Fuck.~ Kyle got to the gate before Mr. Jones made it to the box - no point in it, when Kyle was already there and would've probably been sent down to let him in anyway, and hit the switch to start opening the gates. "Mr. Jones?" He tried to stay inside the lights lining the path up to the mansion, and waved.

Bart froze but Kyle was easy to pick out with the lights on the side and the glow of the mansion in the background. "Kyle," he said, sounding relieved that he had found someone he recognized. It would be hard not to considering that every other time Angel came home, she brought the young man with her. Though he looked considerably different than Bart had ever seen him - it was the clothes, and that jacket, but also the situation.

He shook hands with Kyle and stepped back, coughing again, as he asked, "Kyle, where the hell is my daughter? I know she and her classmates were going to be in the city today - tell me, please god, tell me they made it back here." Kyle's face fell, and that gave Bart his answer before the young man even spoke a word.

"They're still in the city." Every single other time that Bart Jones had spoken with Kyle Gibney, the boy had been, well, polite enough, but talkative and slightly hyperactive. It was obvious why Angel got along with him. This - this was nothing like the cheerful, grinning, mop-haired friend who fed their dog his leftover french fries. "We're doing our best, it's ..." he parroted Scott's post to the team journal. "It's not a matter of if, it's when. When we can, as soon as we can, we'll go get them."

Under the dirt and grim that covered the tall reporter, he suddenly seemed to age at the news. Bart ran a hand over his face as he leaned even more on his cane; the pain in his leg had been severe since he'd started to evacuate almost as soon as the attack had happened. Now, though, it was a distant complaint all things considered. "I should have stayed," he murmured and then shook his head. He knew better than that - he was past his prime to be running around and these people would be his daughter's only chance.

"All right, son, I trust you folks to bring me my daughter back," Bart sighed. She wasn't just his daughter now. She was someone's student and, he looked over Kyle once more, someone's good friend. They'd all do their damnedest to bring her and the others home. Another coughing fit had him almost on the ground before he managed to straighten up and clear his lungs.

Kyle moved to put his shoulder under Bart's free arm once he was back upright. "First, if you don't mind, I'm gonna bring you up the driveway and then to see one of the docs.." He tapped a claw against his ear - no, against a black earpiece that Bart could briefly see tucked around and behind his ear and briefly spoke to ... someone, explaining that the perimeter alarm was Bart Jones, and that he was bringing him up to the mansion now. "We've got guest rooms, we can put you up in one of those until this is over."

"...yeah, I think I'm going to need both, thanks," Bart replied, leaning some of his weight on the younger man. They were the same height so it wasn't as difficult as it could have been. He eyed Kyle with some exhausted interest. The young man who was helping him towards the mansion was ... different than the one that he fed on a regular basis. He didn't know how he would have reacted if he'd seen Kyle be like this around his daughter before but seeing him like this now, after the hell he'd left behind?

If they were all like this, and all looking to end it and get his daughter back, he was glad he was seeing this side of these people.