MOVED TO LIVEDTOUGH

MOVED -> LIVEDTOUGH

MOVED -> LIVEDTOUGH

MOVED -> LIVEDTOUGH

MOVED -> LIVEDTOUGH

MOVED -> LIVEDTOUGH

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MOVED -> LIVEDTOUGH

Months passed, and Reagan couldn’t look back at them. She couldn’t think about them, or what happened during them, she had to push forward. To recover. And she wanted to find Marcos. Her mind was eventually able to regain all of the memories that Dreamer had taken, but it was too late. The Atlanta station - along with a lot of the other stations - had been destroyed. He, along with everyone else she remembered, had been declared dead. But there had been signs, stories, and they had given her hope when she needed it the most that he was still out there. Now she just had to find him. And while her powers had grown in ways that she didn’t even understand yet, her brain had not. So it took what felt like forever to put all of the pieces together while not drawing any attention to her or them, to finally figure out where he - along with what she was praying were the other members of the Atlanta station - were hiding out.

She was right to think that they were on alert. Of course, these days they were rarely anything else, but they were well hidden here, and most alarms were false ones. This time, though, he wasn't sure. There was someone here, and everyone was on edge. Marcos was on edge, hands flexed, preparing to attack. He would do whatever he had to to keep his family safe, the same way he had countless times before. Whatever, whoever, walked through the door, he'd meet them, and he would win. He was tired of loss, of stepping away from people he cared about. He wouldn't lose anyone again, not now.

“Which is exactly what I just said,” Lucan replied. “And I respect it. Whether you have moments where you lose that hope or not, I see how hard you work to appear consistent in how you feel around the people staying here. I see how they look to you, and how you respond to that. It comes with your job, and you do it. But it doesn’t come with mine. People don’t look at me like that. If anything, they avoid me unless they need something from me, and that’s worked out just fine for everyone involved. Different jobs require different things. Which brings me back to my original point: I don’t want to be a leader, and I don’t want to be a station head. I just want to keep doing what I’m already doing.” He then nodded when Marcos said he was a soldier, and that he understood because he’d been a soldier himself, and that he would just let him be that moving forward. “...I told Evangeline I would come in and do what I was told, go where I was told, healing people and picking up the slack at whatever stations I was at. That’s all I want to do.” That was all he was capable of doing. As for his resume, he commented, “I can fight, I can heal people, and I’m a jack-of-all-trades when it comes to station work. I think my ‘resume’ is just fine.”

Despite the fact that they'd spent the day at most yelling at each other, and at least on the verge of doing so, the way that Lucan complimented him made something inside of him warm. He didn't do his job for the glory, for compliments or affection, but he was only human, and sometimes it was nice to be told that he was doing a good job, that everything he did wasn't in vain. It was just part of his job, though, and he thought he did a good job. Maybe he should have thanked him for the words, but he didn't. He could have continued to press the issue, but it was clear enough at this point that Lucan didn't have any interest in developing a bedside manner, and he wasn't going to. Nothing Marcos said was going to change his mind, and nothing Lucan said was going to change his mind, either. Let him dig his own grave, Marcos thought. Or, if not his grave, at the very least a hole to hide in. "I guess that's fair enough," he said, finally allowing him the point. The back and forth was clearly useless, and it wasn't really all that pressing. It was his life. He could live it how he wanted. "I get it. I've been there. I guess I just don't want you to close yourself off." A pause, and a shrug, "But it's your life. I guess I've just gotta let you live it."

“No, they don’t,” Tristan replied with a shake of his head, “But they keep happening. And it makes you wonder - what will we look like in 50 years? In 100 years? How will we have evolved? Normally, evolution... It’s to adapt to the environment, right? To survive. But dragons, and dreamwalkers, and flamethrowers... Like you said, it doesn’t make sense. Still, maybe we’re adapting for things we don’t even realize are already in motion. That we can’t even comprehend yet.” He then nodded, “I know it is. We have every kind of mutant come through our doors - men and women, young and old, rich and poor, visible and non-visible, all walks of life. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter; we’re the enemy. But it’s hard to look at her...” He gestured to his sister, a child soundly asleep, curling into herself as she had since the day their parents brought her home. “...and understand that. Not saying that it’s the first time I’ve ever thought that but, as I’m sure you know, it’s harder when it’s someone you love. And I do have to worry about it. Because at the end of the day, Sam is part of a larger unit. One that won’t be separated, and I don’t know what that will mean for us.”

He wasn't necessarily looking for an answer, but he was glad enough that the other man seemed to agree with him. He knew he was right, of course, that one day it was possible that every ability they had might evolve into something needed, but they were at the stages in the evolution now where the purpose, for some, hadn't quite been made clear. "I never really had time to learn the science of it all. I mean, I know what everyone does, but...like you say, it makes you think. Maybe our bodies know something that's coming that we don't." Which wasn't necessarily a reassuring thought, but he supposed he could be comforted in the idea that his body would protect him, that he had been given the abilities to protect himself. He understood what he said, about it being difficult to understand that his sister was the enemy. He may not have had it happen to him at a personal level, but, like him, he'd seen people from all walks of life come into the Underground, and none of them had been monsters. They were all just people. "I know." He reached out to give Tristan a pat on the shoulder, something reassuring, almost brotherly. "I get it, man. It just doesn't get any easier." Which he knew the other man knew, of course, but it was worth saying either way. "Alright, but try not to worry about it now, okay? We've got enough on our plates."