The X-Project

After all the discussion of Saturday's mission is done, there's time for one of those conversations that really needed to happen. Nathan and Anika arrange for Kyle to meet Mick and Tim.


"It's a surprise," Anika said firmly, her arm around Kyle's shoulder as she led him out to the back porch. "That's why I'm not telling you. Don't you like surprises?"

Kyle frowned. "Depends. If its the kind where I get cake, yes. If its the kind where I get a fuzzy squid on my head, not really." Cake being metaphorical for a lot of things that also happened to include cake, of course. Kyle wasn't feeling particularly literary. Not that he ever was. "If there's squid involved, I'm going back inside. All I'm sayin'."

"No cake, or squids. Well, we could find cake after, if you want," Anika said, after pondering the idea for a moment. "I think cake might be nice. I have this huge craving for strawberry-flavored icing now." She opened the back door, urging Kyle out onto the porch ahead of her.

Nathan, sitting in one of the chair, gave Tim and Mick, both of whom looked a little uneasy - if in very different ways - a steady, encouraging look, before he grinned briefly at Kyle. "Don't tell me she had to drag you away from the X-Box or something?"

Kyle had the good grace to look sheepish. "Um. Kinda?" He said, shrugging. "Hey, I did homework -first-. Without Forge having to remind me or anything." Well, not technically having to remind him. Reminders that your roommate built into your email program didn't count for reminders. He looked at Nate carefully, and then at the other two men on the porch. "Um? Did I forget a holiday? Escaped from mutant weapon camp day?"

Mick smiled suddenly, almost involuntarily. "Something like that," he said with a chuckle. Noticing how close Kyle was standing to Ani, the obvious body language. Ferals... you've got to love them.

Tim managed a fainter, yet still warm smile for Kyle. Nathan shook his head at him, then decided that he was going to have to take the conversational initiative here.

"Kyle, this is Tim, and Mick," he said. "Ani and I have known them for a very long time."

"Oh! I remember. Sound guy, and guy who was in the infirmary. From when Nate brought back all the little kids." Kyle grinned. "At least, I think.. or was it the other way around?" He'd been all hung up on a bucketload of new kids to get used to at the time, and now he couldn't remember which one of them was which.

"He's sound-guy, I'm infirmary-guy," Tim said, a bit dryly. "And you're Kyle." Tim regarded him for a long moment, then mustered another faint smile, this one definitely more unsteady. "It's good to know you're doing so well."

"Yeah," Mick seconded quietly.

Kyle had the vague sense that he was probably chewing on his foot, but he wasn't sure -why-. Maybe adult type escapees from mutant weapon summer camp didn't like to be reminded either. Kyle sure as heck didn't like thinking about it. "Pretty well. I have to redo a bunch of classes cause of missing them, and that sucks, but otherwise..." He shrugged. "Better a classroom than a little white room." He was -not- going to talk about trying to beat up Jay. He wasn't even sure if that was his fault or the Mistra-people's fault or both.

"Because as we all know," Anika said with a certain forced cheerfulness, "little white rooms truly suck." She gave Kyle's shoulder a squeeze and then went over to Mick, hoping Kyle wouldn't take it badly but unable to not respond to the suppressed pain she could smell coming off him.

"Uh-huh." Kyle agreed, nodding. He wasn't sure he was going to trust his mouth again for a few more minutes, as it was saying things long before he had a chance to think about them, and it was really obvious that Ani and Mick were a thing. Which bugged him a little, because Mick wasn't even remotely feral, but it wasn't like Kyle had a chance in hell anyway, being, well, fourteen. So he bit his tongue. Literally. And tried not to glower. ~Dear me. Don't be a dumbass. Love me.~ he thought.

Nathan noted Kyle's extreme effort at self-control, and tried very hard not to chuckle. "So," he said very quietly, after a moment. "You're probably wondering why the reunion." Tim gave him a sharp look, but Nathan ignored him.

"Kinda, yeah." Kyle said. "I mean, I joked to Doc Samson about a support group but I was joking, you know?" Maybe its why Ani was all sad before, the last time she'd been here.

"Tim and Mick wanted to meet you," Nathan said steadily. "Because believe it or not, you helped them get out."

Tim blinked, then relaxed a little, surprised and relieved that this was what Nathan was choosing to tell Kyle was the reason for this little meeting. He'd been afraid Nathan wanted to tell him about the raid, and as fond as he genuinely was of a number of ferals, they were not generally good about keeping secrets.

"I did what? No -way-." Kyle shook his head. Those were adult type people, he couldn't see how he'd helped. "Seriously? I helped? From here?"

"No," Mick said, very softly. "From the white room."

"The fuck?" Kyle said, very confused, not even remembering not to drop the f-bomb around adults. "This is me being really, really confused now. All I did in that room was chew my nails and pace and try to figure out where the hell I was."

The four adults looked at each other, silent communication that had nothing to do with telepathy passing back and forth between them. Mick was the one who answered Kyle, his voice still steady, far calmer than anyone who knew about the events of Vermont and Belgium might have expected to hear from him.

"When you were in the white room," he said, "Tim and I were still with Mistra. Our conditioning was still intact. Someone..." He faltered for a moment. "Someone sent our team to that safehouse. We saw you. And it was too much, Kyle. The conditioning broke."

"Mick managed to get away," Tim said, sounding a bit hoarse. "I didn't. They took me back and fixed the crack... or thought they did. It didn't really work, and then when Nathan and I fought... well, he broke my conditioning then, and brought me back with the kids."

"You know, I don't even remember much of getting out?" Kyle said. "I remember Nate, um, getting rid of the people without faces, and I remember waking up on the plane a little, and that's it. I know it happened, but I don't remember much about it." He wasn't sure what much more to say. The idea that he'd managed to even help a little was beyond what he could accept. He was -fourteen-, and they were adults. They weren't supposed to need help from kids.

"We'll remember it for you," Nathan murmured, his eyes drifting out to the grounds. "It's all right, Kyle."

"It just is... really good to know you're all right," Mick said. Anika hugged him briefly, and he smiled down at her for a moment before looking back at Kyle. "You and the kids that Nate brought back from Canada... it's a hopeful thing, if you get what I mean."

"If it means that we're not in white rooms at mutant weapon summer camp, and instead we're in school, yeah, I get it." Kyle said. He occasionally forgot about the room, not liking to think about it, but classes, even the sucky ones were definitly better than that had been. "Talia's in my biology class, and I think she's okay too. I mean, I think so anyway."

"Talia?" Tim asked, looking at Nathan.

"The little blonde, from Canada. Tough, tough little blonde," Nathan said a bit wryly, then grinned at Kyle. "Rather like this one."

"Blondes are always tough," Anika said with a mock-huff. She hugged Mick again as he chuckled at her.

Kyle went cross-eyed for a second, a little embarassed. "She's cool, but I think she's playing catchup on stuff like I had to, so we don't get to talk a lot. But she'd already discessted a frog before, so she wasn't all "ew." like some of the people in my class." He really needed to talk to Talia more often, now that he thought about it. She was cute too.

Anika raised an eyebrow, grinning at what she caught in his sense, and Nathan gave her a reproving look. #Don't tease the boy, Ani... and stop groping Mick or the two of them are liable to wind up having one of those 'Hurt her and I'll bite you' conversation.# He got a ripple of delighted mental laughter in response, and shook his head.

They were doing that talk in the heads thing again. Expressions like they were talking but no actual words. Kyle frowned. "You're making fun of me." He said. Ani had that "I know exactly what you're thinking." grin. Which meant he'd done something that was funny for some reason he didn't get. "What did I do?"

"You were being fourteen," Tim said, cracking another of those wry smiles. "Which is... well, kind of great?"

Anika made a mocking noise at him. "Ignore them, Kyle," she said cheerfully. "They're being all introspective and shit tonight, which makes all three of them very, very tiresome at times."

"We could put them in a room with Forge and Jay, and they could have a really quiet party where everyone thinks too much?" Kyle suggested, only a teeny bit serious. "Forge and Jay do introspective and shit really really well. " Far too well, sometimes. It bugged Kyle.

"It's a lousy characteristic!" Anika said with a sudden, fierce grin and a wild laugh. "Screw introspection. We need more impulsiveness and strawberry icing in our lives."

"Strawberry cake, strawberry icing. That's all I'm sayin'." Kyle agreed. He'd never liked fruit this much before, but he sure as hell wasn't complaining. "Really, its too bad its March, because I bet I could throw at least one of them in the lake."

"Lake-throwing. Mmm," Nathan joked quietly, then gave Tim a very put-on speculative look. The younger man laughed, then looked startled at himself for doing it.

Anika hugged Mick once more and then detached herself. "Icing," she said firmly to Kyle. "Then I have to come out and talk to these grumpy guys some more, but I promised you icing and that's what we'll have."

Kyle made a note not to piss off Nate anytime soon. He looked far too entertained with the idea of chucking someone in a lake. Though, it wasn't all -that- cold right now.

"You were the one saying that you wanted icing." Kyle noted. "I mean, not that I'm saying no, because I'm all for it, but it was your idea." He was not thinking about Anika unattaching herself from Mick. No, his mind was firmly on cake, and trying not to remember that Nate was a telepath. Because it could easily end in lake-throwing. Or something like that.

Ani batted her eyes at him. "Come eat icing with me, then?" she said, with all appearance of meekness. Tim turned away abruptly, very obviously to hide a snicker.

"Go have fun, the pair of you," Nathan said, knowing why Anika wanted to spend a little time with Kyle tonight. "The three of us will still be out here when you come bounding out on a scary sugar high, Ani."

Kyle grinned. "Yes, ma'am." He was fairly sure that Forge would murder him later when he was hyper and climbing the walls, but he could live with a little roommate-murdering. He eagerly followed Ani back into the mansion, appearing back on the porch a moment later with a serious expression on his face.

Grinning, and making sure that the teeth showed, he walked over to Mick, arms crossed. "Just, you know, so you know? If you hurt Anika at all? I'll bite you."

Mick nodded, very careful not to smile. "Heard and understood. Best not to have any mix-ups on these issues, I've always thought..."

Kyle nodded. "Good, cause, you know. With the biting. Ask Jay." Dammit. There went the mouth before the brain again. He shrugged and turned away to walk back to the house before he could manage to stay anything else -stupid-.

Mick managed to wait until the door had closed behind Kyle before he started to snicker. Tim was leaning heavily on the railing, his shoulders shaking with silent laughter, and Nathan shook his head at them both.

"No sympathy, either of you," he said mock-severely. "I remember perfectly well how the two of you both drooled at Ani when she was first assigned to a team."

"It's just..." Tim swallowed, wiping tears of merriment away as he straightened. "It's just damned cute, that's all. Mick, I think you've got competition."

"I'll have to plot strategy, then. Want to help?" Tim just laughed harder, and Mick gave him an entirely unconvincing sulphurous glare.

Nathan, smiling helplessly, slouched further in the chair and realized, with some surprise, that he wasn't worrying about Saturday just now.


Afterwards, the four former Mistra operatives share a bottle of wine and make a toast or three. Fears for the weekend and hopes for the future are discussed, and other things needing saying are said. Nathan discovers that sometimes closure is something you accept like a gift.


This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember'd;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers...
-Henry V


"What did you do, raid the wine cellar?"

Nathan smirked at Mick's question. "Exactly," he said, setting the bottle on the railing and floating three of the four glasses over to him, Tim, and Anika, who giggled as she plucked hers out of the air. "Although I'm not sure you need any," he told Anika with a mock-serious look. "Alcohol, on top of all that sugar?"

She grimaced cheerfully at him as he opened the bottle. "Oh, I'll be fine in a little while. I metabolize it quickly, you know that. And it was worth it. Kyle had fun."

"Eating icing out of the container," Tim said dryly. "Ah, the simple joys." Anika snickered and poked him, and Nathan smiled as he got the bottle open and started to fill each of the glasses. "I'd ask what the occasion is," Tim said, holding his out, "but I'm not an idiot."

"So long as no one's expecting me to make a toast," Mick murmured quietly, sinking back into his chair. He had a distant, oddly wistful look as he gazed out at the grounds. "I suck at poetry."

"Do you still write it, by the way?" Tim asked Nathan abruptly, grinning a little at the dark look he got. "Come on, I always thought that was endearing. Weird as hell, but endearing."

"Occasionally," Nathan grumbled. "Usually for Moira." He got the last of the glasses filled, then set the bottle down carefully out of the way. "So," he said more softly, looking at the three of them. "Here we are."

"Here we are," Anika echoed in a murmur, not looking at all as if she'd just spent the last twenty minutes eating strawberry icing with a fellow feral. "This feel vaguely unreal to anyone else, still?"

"Vaguely?" Tim said with a soft snort. "Try totally surreal to the point where I'm still occasionally pinching myself." He took a deep breath, staring down at the wine glass for a moment. "We've done all the preparing we can, though. Time to roll the dice."

"Let's not look at it like that," Nathan suggested, grimacing a bit. There was quite enough random chance involved in this, to his mind. "Seizing the day, instead?"

"Carpe diem?" Anika offered, raising her glass.

Mick smiled faintly, raising his. "I'd drink to that."

"Carpe diem, then." There was the clink of glass touching glass, and Nathan took a carefully judicious sip of his wine before he said anything. "Tim's right, though. We've done everything we can." He smiled ruefully. "I know that's not going to calm the nerves, but maybe if we keep reminding ourselves..."

"I just never expected it to come about this quickly," Mick said a bit helplessly. "It's like the opportunity just dropped in our laps, and... well, maybe I'm fundamentally a pessimist, but it still seems too good to be true when I stop to think about it."

"It may yet be," Tim said dourly, then raised an eyebrow as the other three looked at him. "What? I never claimed I wasn't a pessimist."

"Is this going to be a broodfest?" Anika asked, wearing her very best 'Look at me, I'm perky!' expression. "Because if it's going to be a broodfest, I'm going to go chase squirrels with Kyle and the three of you can mope by yourselves."

Mick retaliated with his best puppy-dog look. "Throwing me over for the boy? Well, I knew that was coming..." She laughed and came over to perch on the arm of his chair.

"Oh, please," Tim said innocently. "If you're going to throw Mick over for anyone, make it me? I've been so terribly jealous, you know...." His smile was a little bittersweet, suddenly. "Really have, actually." The two of them blinked at him, and he shrugged. "Not in the bad way, damn it, don't give me the wounded eyes... I just..." He trailed off a bit helplessly.

"I kept telling you to head out to Berlin for a weekend," Anika said, a teasing edge to the words but nothing but warm affection in her blue eyes.

"Not enough time," Tim said ruefully. "Trust me, I probably would have if we hadn't been so busy."

Nathan coughed, trying to repress the smile as he leaned back against the railing. "Okay, now the conversation is going disturbing places," he said. "Tim? Once we've gotten through this, the rest of us will matchmake happily for you, okay? Shouldn't be too hard."

"Oh. Oh-ho," Tim said, putting a hand over his heart in mock-hurt. "Are you implying I have low standards?"

"No," Nathan said, the smile slipping out. "Just that it shouldn't be hard. Women really dig the wounded puppy look." Anika snickered, leaning against Mick, who allowed himself a brief, self-satisfied smirk.

The urge to joke didn't last very long, though, fading quickly into a pensive silence. Mick, surprisingly, was the first one to break it. "I've been thinking about the others," he said, and they all knew who he meant. The other first-gens. The 'family'.

"Me too," Tim said, his voice almost hushed. He sipped at his wine. "Wondering what they'll do on Saturday. When they see us."

"Well, I know what they'll do when they see me," Anika volunteered, her tone bright but her eyes shadowed. "'Ani! I thought you were dead!' I hear that a lot, you know," she murmured, trailing off.

"There's a solid tactical option, you know," Nathan said a bit dryly. "Wave you at them. Watch them do a double-take. Take the opening and knock them out safely..."

"We have to go in knowing that it might not work," Tim said, his voice low but rough. "If worse comes to worse and they fight... not just the others, but the second-gens, too, I mean. It could get so very messy."

There was no denying that, and the silence that fell then was charged, uneasy. They all knew that of the list of objectives for the raid, taking the operatives into custody was not the highest priority, since it was a dicey proposition at best. Nathan stared at his wine for a moment, then raised the glass to his lips, struggling with what to say. Trying to find some kind of reassurance.

"If we can take out their coms," he said finally, and that was the plan, after all, "the directorate won't have time to issue new orders. I hope... I think that'll mean that the others can at least find a loophole and exploit it." He tried to smile. "And your team from Canada, Tim... I still think they'll surprise us."

"I hope so," Tim murmured, and his features twisted with something close to pain for a moment before his expression smoothed again, though he was obviously still distressed. Just covering it better. "I just hope that they're okay. That nothing happened."

"They don't have enough first-gens to be throwing them away because a mission went bad," Nathan said quietly, trying to reassure him. "And if their conditioning cracked... they won't be obvious about it." His eyes flickered sideways to Mick and Ani. "The instinct is to hide it."

"If Nash has got any option, he'll do what he can to help us," Mick said, softly but firmly, his eyes locked on Tim. "You know that. Him and Izzy and Ian, at the very least..."

"Chris, too. And Pull... I can't see her not grabbing the opportunity. Not with Neil there with us," Tim murmured, then smiled almost reluctantly. "The situation looks a little more hopeful when you stop to think about it, I guess. Maybe I've been a little too pessimistic."

"No," Nathan said softly, an edge of pain to the words as he went on. "You just feel guilty for leaving them behind. But you didn't have a choice, Tim." They had talked about this numerous times during that week in Galicia, and he knew it was still an open wound for the younger man.

But Tim surprised him. He looked up, meeting Nathan's eyes steadily. "And neither did you," he said simply. Nathan twitched, startled by the sudden change in subject, and Tim shook his head. "I've been meaning to turn that around on you for a while now... you just didn't give me the opportunity until just now."

"Tim... it's not the same," Nathan said heavily. "And I don't need you to make me feel better about it."

"I'm not going to try and argue you out of the eight-year-long guiltfest, Nate," was Tim's somewhat sharper reply. He sipped at his wine again, pausing a moment before he went on. "I just want you to know that I don't blame you for leaving. I never did. I wished you were there, more times than I can count, but I never blamed you for leaving." There was a vehemence about the words, as if he was determined to drive them home, have them believed.

"Neither did I," Mick added softly, his eyes lingering on Nathan. "Not only didn't I blame you, but I understood." The corner of his mouth tugged upwards. "Hell, I did the same thing in your place, didn't I?"

"And I sure as hell didn't blame you for leaving," Anika said firmly. "But I've told you that before. Lots of times." She gave him a fond, exasperated look. "Maybe with all three of us saying it you'll finally believe it."

Nathan swallowed, his throat suddenly almost unbearably tight. He could feel the weight of their eyes on him, feel the quiet, fierce sincerity behind their words. They believed it, and they wanted him to believe it. And maybe he had to believe it, to be able to do what he needed to do on Saturday. To act out of something other than guilt. Because this wasn't about redemption, his or anyone else's. It was about saving lives, about walking out of the shadows and taking everyone with them. Into the light, at last.

Take it, he told himself, mulling over their words in his mind. Take it as a gift, because that's what it is.

"In the end, you came back, Nathan," Tim said finally. "That's the important thing. All that matters, really." His eyes were suspiciously bright, despite the gruffness of the words, and he raised his glass again. "To going back?"

"To kicking ass," Anika added.

"With our shield or on it?" was Mick's wry, questioning addition.

Nathan shook his head suddenly, raising his own glass. "No," he said, his voice shaky but strong. "With our friends."