Next chapter, as promised, though if I don't get more reviews, my muse might go back to Jamaica... she likes to know when she's being appreciated! *hint hint*


"This is it," Cat said, eyeing the dark, stone mansion with more than a little trepidation, then glancing downwards as shards of glass crunched under her feet. She looked for the source and realized that the giant picture window above the mansion's front door was little more than a frame.

"What happened here?" Theo said, unconsciously echoing her thoughts.

"Let's find out," she suggested, and sliding her fingers into Theo's hand, proceeded to walk up the front walk towards the broken doors. Theo's grip tightened as they got closer, and Cat agreed; in the pre-dawn light, the Victorian mansion was extremely forbiding.

Spreading her heightened senses out to their extreme limit, she gently pushed one of the doors aside, wincing at the loud creaking sound it made as it's hinges protested the slight movement as Cat made a wide enough crack for them to slip through.

It was even darker inside the mansion, dark enough that Cat had to squint to look around for a lightswitch, and she sighed in frustration just as Theo's free hand found it and the quiet click was accompanied by... nothing. The lights didn't respond. "No power," Theo said matter-of-factly. "Come on."

He pulled her forward, apparently able to see where he was going, then stopped cold. By then, Cat's eyes had adjusted to the lack of light and she could see it, too: a large pile of black-clad bodies.

"SWAT?" she muttered, for the soldiers did bear a marked resemblance to the ones they'd seen not so long ago. She let go of Theo's hand and moved forward cautiously, grabbing one body by the shoulder and pulling it onto it's back, searching for dogtags. "Not SWAT," she said, finding none. "Something else."

"What do we do?" Theo asked, sounding slightly nauseated.

Cat thought for a moment, surveying the damaged foyer. "Well, the only bodies here are the attackers- at least, that's what I guess they are. Maybe this means that the Xavier guy got away."

"Will he come back, do you think?" Theo asked.

"Probably," Cat shrugged, and stood, grabbing the body by the shoulder strap on it's uniform. "Let's clean this place up a bit for him, huh?"

"Yeah," Theo said, dropping his backpack. "You want me to dig a hole?"

"No. Let's just get them out of the mansion, let Xavier decide what to do with them. Put the weapons in a separate pile, though." She found a butterfly knife in one of the guy's jacket pockets. "I'm keeping this."

"Yeah, this is mine," Theo said, waving a military-issue compass he'd found in another guy's pocket.

Clean-up went by in no time- with her powers, Cat could easily lift two or three bodies at the same time, and Theo worked with stoic determination. They eventually had close to twenty bodies, all the black-clad soldiers, lined up neatly on the front lawn, and a respectable pile of weapons in the foyer.

"Well, that was fun," Theo said, winded as he wiped blood off his arms with a paper towel he'd found in the kitchen. "Are we finished?"

She nodded, eyes on the books that lined the living room wall. "Think so."

There was a rustle of plastic as Theo dropped his paper towel in a trash can, and then less than a second's pause before he wrapped his arms around her waist from behind. She leaned gratefully against him, glad of the reminder that she wasn't alone. "You're tired," she commented, sensing it in the slight tremble in his frame.

Feeling him shrug against her back was a sensation unto itself, for Theo was a lot stronger in the flesh than he looked from afar. "It's been a long day. Night," he corrected himself, for the sun was now shining brightly through the windows.

"Yeah." Now that she thought about it, she was nearly as exhausted as he was, more from the emotional roller-coaster the night had been than from the physical exertions, and she had to slap Theo's hand, which was idly stroking her stomach, simply because she was too tired to follow up on what her instincts wanted her to do. "Do you think we can get on the couch without letting go?" she asked wistfully, eyeing the plush leather with longing.

He laughed, pulled her towards it until the side of her leg brushed against it, and then deftly fell sideways so that they did, indeed, end up horizontal on the couch. She squirmed around until she could rest her head on his chest, and that was all she could manage to do before she fell asleep.


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