Among the Strong
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marysuevirusTitle: Among the Strong
Chapter Twelve: The Reckoning, part 1
Fandom: the Marvel universe
Rating: 18 and up
Warnings: graphic violence, language, sex, dark themes, anything else i can toss in.
Disclaimer: the recognizable characters and places contained herein are the property of Marvel. i'm merely borrowing for the sake of entertainment. no money is being made from this venture. Haley belongs todazzledfirestar Morgan belongs toginevra Roxxy belongs tonanaeanaven Jehnna belongs to silverfox_chan and Dare belongs to me. the concept and title of The Mary Sue Virus are used with permission from dazzledfirestar .
Author's Notes: this is almost entirely Daz's fault. okay. so it really isn't. its actually almost 100% my fault. Daz just did a whole lot of encouraging. this fic is going to be kind of dark, so please keep that in mind while reading.
Among the Strong - the index
"This is the third time this week you've thrown my pillow at me." Warren bent over to pick up the offending article, returning it to the side of the bed that had been designated as his.
Morgan's voice, still heavy with sleep, was muffled by her own pillow. "That's because this is the third time this week you've woken me up before I was ready to get up." She showed no intention of climbing from the bed. Which wouldn't normally be a problem. But Sinister had them on a schedule and they'd found out the hard way that he disliked having the schedule interrupted.
"You're normally up before I am, Morgan," he added. She didn't turn toward him. She didn't speak. But she did lift a finger in his direction, letting him know exactly what she thought of him at that exact moment. He frowned at that. This wasn't like Morgan. Slowly, almost cautiously, he settled on the edge of the bed and reached out a hand to rest on her shoulder. "Is there something going on that I don't know about, Morgan? This isn't like you."
He heard her sigh, then she rolled over so that she was looking up at him. There were faint smudges of fatigue under her eyes, but she looked okay. Her color seemed good and a palm against her cheek told him it wasn't warm. She nuzzled into the touch, something she'd been doing with more frequency ever since he'd called her on her bullshit. Hell, so much had happened in the past month and a half.
He paused a moment to think about that. Three months in this place, whatever and where ever it was, and it felt like it had been always. Forever. An odd thing, to be sure, because three months certainly wasn't forever. But the intensity of his emotions had only grown. And he felt certain that Morgan's had grown, too. He'd seen less of her flirty side as the days had passed. They were capable of regular, real conversations without a flash of sarcasm to push him away from her. They took joy in simple things, like bathing with one another. Cuddling on the couch and in bed. Talking about long buried hopes and dreams. Sharing memories that were filled with joy. And with sorrow. She'd told him the story of how she'd met Dare. How they'd spent literal years separated but Faye had brought Morgan images of events and bits of dreams.
He'd held Morgan when she'd admitted to being lost without Faye. When she'd cried over the part of her that was missing. She'd told him about the link that had been forged between Dare and herself. Then Remy and herself. And then Logan and herself. How Faye tied them all together. She'd shared her worries that they were as lost without her as she was without them.
He'd shared with her how much being part of the team meant to Jehnna. How much Jehnna loved her team mates and friends. And how much they frustrated her in turns. He shared stories of his time as an X-Man, just as she shared stories about her missions. They'd bonded over the emotions they held over their children. And their friends. They'd talked about the tragedies in their lives. They'd shared highs and lows. Warren felt like he knew a great deal about Morgan. And he was confident she knew a good deal about him.
He wasn't afraid to say that he loved her. Some part of him felt that being trapped in this place together had made such a thing inevitable. Close contact and constant sex tended to do weird things to one's brain. Of course, the seeds of such emotions had to have been present before the forced cohabitation had begun. And he supposed something had been there. He and Jehnna had been together for a long time. Which meant he spent time around all of her team. Friendships had been forged years ago.
Haley was as much a capable leader as she was a capable friend. He knew that part had been rocky in the beginning. She'd been closer to Morgan and Roxxy than Jehnna and Dare at the start. He'd heard the speculation, back when she'd started her team, that she'd only asked Morgan because of her friendship with Dare. And people had considered Jehnna an odd choice. But he'd seen firsthand just how wrong that speculation had been. Haley had made solid, informed decisions about who she'd wanted on her team. And time had proven her decisions had been the right ones. Now, more than ten years into the team, she'd proven that the five of them were more than five friends on a team. She'd turned them into a family.
Roxxy was the solid anchor of the group. She was always the rational one. The one who could always be counted on. She'd been Haley's best friend for as long as Warren could remember. And she provided the balance that the team needed at times. Not that she didn't have her moments of playfulness. She just didn't allow herself to have as many as her friends did.
Despite people's misgivings, Jehnna had proved herself a fairly logical choice. She had strong powers that could be useful in most fights. The only problem had been her lack of training. And her confidence. Training with Scott had been both a blessing and a curse for her. Scott had been a great choice for her in terms of using her powers with precision. But his desire to keep people safe had done a number on her confidence. Still, she'd managed to blossom and grow and her control and precision were top notch.
Morgan had seemed an odd choice because of her powers. They really weren't the kind of powers you'd find in someone on a team meant to help and save and be heroes. Most people hadn't thought Morgan would do well on a team, They'd thought her abilities ill-suited for field work. So there'd been speculation that she'd only been given a place on the team because that meant Dare became an option. Dare was the one person any team might actually want to recruit. Of course there were other people out there who worked with fire. But there was no one else who could simply think the flames into existence. Public opinion had been that Haley hadn't really wanted Morgan, but had compromised and asked to bring Dare into the lineup.
That rumor still persisted, no matter how much Haley denied it. But there weren't many people who believed it simply because Morgan had proven that her mutation could work to their advantage in damn near every situation. Her twin, Faye, had proven that they both had something to offer the team. And time spent with Jehnna meant time spent with her friends. Dinners out when everyone was home and nothing was pressing. Game nights. Movie nights. Things that came up spontaneously that allowed them all to socialize. Even things that weren't spontaneous, like joint missions, that showed just who they were as heroes. As people.
He'd had years to get to know the members of Purple Team. Years to befriend all of them. Years to develop deeper feelings for them. Years to get to where he was at present. Which was trapped God knew where with a woman who was not his wife in a room filled with pheromones that gave them no choice but to get to know one another. Everything he'd learned about Morgan had told him she was more than the flirt everyone had thought her to be. She was warm, caring, smart, and funny. And three months in the same room had taken all of those things he knew and it had woven them into something larger. Something new. Something bright and beautiful.
Warren had fallen head over heels for Morgan and he knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that something was wrong. Because this wasn't the way Morgan generally behaved. "What's wrong, sweetheart? This isn't like you. You aren't acting like yourself and I'm worried."
His words saw Morgan smiling up at him. It was perhaps a little bit sleepy, but it was a smile. "That's sweet of you, Warren. I promise, I'm fine." She turned her face so that she could press a kiss to his palm. It was a tickle of sensation that filled him with pleasure. He reveled in that sensation a moment, then took a moment to really consider her actions. It felt like a genuine offering of affection in response to his concern. But it also felt like it could be a way of distracting him from the faint worry that gnawed at the back of his brain.
He was sure something was off. Morgan had been a lot sleepier than usual in the past few weeks. And he was sure he'd seen her frown at a meal or two. "Come on, Morgan. I thought we were past the games," he said gently.
"I am not playing with you, Warren. I promise," she replied. Her tone was laced with sincerity. If she was lying, it was with the most honest look he'd ever seen. He wanted to believe her, but something told him that his instincts were dead on.
"Morgan," he tried once more.
She pulled herself into a sitting position. Doing so pulled her tank top tight against her breasts, dragging his attention to the way they seemed to strain against the soft, cottony material. When his gaze slid back up to her face, she was reaching for him with both hands. He let her pull him into her without fighting. "I swear, Warren. Nothing is wrong. I'm fine."
He let her kiss the concern and fear away, falling into the way her lips ate at his. Soon enough, there were no thoughts left in his head and the mattress cradled their bodies as he guided her back down onto it.
~*~
She wasn't fine.
Morgan let the thought slide across her grey matter even as she watched Warren disappear into the bathroom. She hated lying to him, but she wasn't ready to talk about what was going on. Hell, she'd only barely started thinking about what the hell was going on herself.
She let her gaze shift to the calendar that was conveniently on display close to the bed. It had shown up there not long after they'd been brought to this place. Maybe Sinister had decided that empty walls were boring and had taken pity on them with a calendar that had a different nature photo accompanying each month. Or maybe Sinister had put it there for another reason entirely.
There'd been a discussion between Warren and herself sometime in the first few weeks they'd been here. A discussion about what Sinister might want with them. Warren knew a thing or two about Sinister. More than Morgan did. And he'd said that their captor was very interested in genetics. That had started Morgan thinking about everything that had happened. She'd started with the fight in the desert with the horsemen. Despite the fact that the encounter had been hectic and face-paced, Morgan had had opportunity to get a look at all four of them.
With nothing but time on her hands, she'd been able to really see details more clearly. And she'd seen herself in Pestilence. She'd seen Haley in War and Jehnna in Famine. Worse, she'd seen Dare in Death. And, when she'd thought on it harder, she'd seen other things, too. Things that had filled her with worry. Things that had made her try all the harder to resist Warren and his suave masculinity. Some part of her had known that this would be a bad idea from start to finish. She'd tried so hard to avoid any emotional entanglements and keep things strictly sex.
Warren had blown that attempt right out of the water.
Morgan listened as the shower came on. She welcomed the few minutes of alone time that would afford her. Being around Warren was hard on her equilibrium. He left her unbalanced and on the verge of tripping over her own heart. She'd felt the same way about Remy back in the beginning. She'd tried to avoid falling for him, too. And yet... Here she was. Morgan cursed herself a fool for falling for Warren.
And she cursed herself for not paying better attention to what was going on. Of course she'd gone back to old habits the minute she'd realized that she and Warren weren't getting out of that room any time soon. And, for a time, she'd been good about keeping track of that most important detail. But somewhere along the line, Warren had wormed his way past her defenses and she'd lost track of everything. She was just surprised that something like this hadn't happened earlier in their stay here.
The exhaustion had started a week or more ago. And, at first, she'd put it down to some kind of depression. It was hard not to be depressed when you were being held prisoner in the same room as a friend's husband. And you were being forced to have sex with that friend's husband. She'd had her days of sleeping around, but she'd never intentionally poached a friend's partner, be it boyfriend or husband. There was guilt hovering in the background. She wasn't sure she could ever apologize to Jehnna enough when she got back home. It didn't matter to her that there were pheromones that controlled their urges. It didn't matter that she really couldn't stop herself from falling into his arms and making love with him again and again. She'd done something so terribly wrong and she'd fallen for a friend's partner.
Again.
For a moment, she saw Remy's face in her mind's eye. His warm smile. The angles of his cheeks and the fullness of his lips. She heard the bourbon-smooth sound of his laugh and felt the stroke of his very agile fingers. And she felt the weight of his eyes resting against her skin as he gazed at her. Then it was Logan's blue gaze that ran over her skin. His toothy smile that looked so frightening but meant sweet, tender things. She recalled how he was so tender with her. With Dare, too. And she remembered how he was a solid, warm anchor when things were chaotic.
She knew, without a doubt, somewhere in the back of her mind, that Remy was here. And she knew who was with him. Dare's grey eyes stared out of the shadows in her mind, her face pale and her lower lip caught between her teeth as she worried about what Morgan would say. What she'd do. She knew that this was going to make Dare hate herself more than she already did. Because she knew that Dare would feel as if she was betraying Morgan and Logan. As if she, like Morgan, had any choice in the matter.
She had to fight the urge to go in search of the link. It wasn't there. Somehow, Sinister had figured out how to cut her off from those closest to her. She hated that she was so alone in her head. She needed them now. Because she'd realized quickly enough that the exhaustion had nothing to do with depression.
When she'd almost gagged at breakfast the first time, she'd taken it for the sign it was.
She tried to figure out when it had happened. But she couldn't. There was so much sex that it all blurred together. Especially since she and Warren rumpled the sheets on a daily basis. She'd lost track of the count. So she didn't know. And that scared her.
The sound of the shower still filling her ears, Morgan pushed the blankets aside and sat up. Then she stared down at her belly. She saw nothing. She cupped it with her hands. She felt nothing. But she knew. She knew without a shadow of a doubt. She just... knew.
A tear trickled out of the corner of her eye. This wasn't how things were supposed to have gone. This wasn't... Why had Sinister made her part of this madness? The tears came harder, fell faster. She indulged while she could, purged it from her system. Because she knew, if Warren saw her crying, he'd demand answers. And she didn't know how to tell him this. She could barely admit to herself that she was in love with him.
How could she admit this?
~*~
He watched as her fork pushed bits of food around. Tonight's meal was salmon with a garlic butter sauce, steamed broccoli, and roasted red potatoes. The salmon was tender and flaky, the garlic butter melted over it to lend some flavor. The potatoes were crisp on the outside and fluffy inside, seasoned simply with salt and pepper. The broccoli nearly snapped when bitten into. It had been drizzled with melted butter. It was a tasty meal. And Jehnna hadn't even touched it.
This was the fourth time this week he'd seen her push her food around on the plate. Oh, she'd tried to be subtle about it. But it was hard to hide something like that when they were the only two people in the room. And there had been the few occasions when he'd seen just a touch of green in her face when their meal had come. He'd seen it just a little bit ago when the salmon plates had arrived. And the other day when they'd been served a seafood gumbo.
Sam sighed and put his fork down. He'd let it go the other times. But he couldn't let it go any longer. He could see what was going on. The thing that struck him was Jehnna didn't seem to see it. Was she that sheltered and innocent or was she blatantly ignoring the signs? He didn't know. But it was time to find out. "Jehnna."
His voice must have startled her, because her fork slipped from her hand to clatter loudly against the table. When she looked up at him, her eyes were wide and maybe touched with a little finger of fear. That look made him think it was denial. "I'm sorry, Sam," she replied, forcing a stiff smile onto her lips. "I guess my mind was wandering."
"We need to talk, Jehnna," he said, his voice as gentle as he could make it. That brought that touch of fear closer to the surface. Made it stronger. He put his fork down and stared at her across the table.
Jehnna was always pale, but her skin was paler than usual. She had a natural rosiness to her cheeks that was curiously absent. And there was a faint tint of green lingering at the corners of her mouth. He thought that there might have been a little bit of fatigue around her eyes, but it was hard to tell with the way she was staring at him with eyes opened so wide.
"About what, Sam?" she asked, false cheeriness painting her words.
"About this," he responded and waved his hand in her general direction. The move seemed to puzzle her because the wide-eyed look slid away to be replaced with confusion.
"About what? I don't think I understand."
"Why do you think Sinister is keeping us here, Jehnna?" he questioned, hoping that she knew what was going on. He didn't relish having to explain everything to her. He didn't want to hurt her. He knew she felt something for him. But her heart belonged to Warren. What Sinister was doing... Her life was going to be so much harder than she could ever imagine when this was all over with.
She stared at him as if she didn't understand the question. After several long seconds, she made some gesture with her hand and reached for her fork. "He's using us to get off because he's some kind of weird pervert that likes to watch."
"Well, I mean. You're not wrong. But that isn't the only reason we're here, Jehnna." He considered his options. Come right out with it or make Jehnna figure things out. He opted to let her work it out. Chances were good, if he told her straight up what was going on, she wouldn't believe him. She'd find some way to laugh and call him silly and insist he was imagining things. And she'd avoid thinking about it entirely. She couldn't push this away, couldn't put it on the back burner and ignore it. She had to see what was going on. She had to realize what kind of trouble they were actually in. And he was sure the only way that would happen was for Jehnna to think about it. All of it.
He was such an asshole.
"What do you remember from the fight, Jehnna?" he asked her softly.
"It was hectic. And it all happened so fast that I could barely hold my own." She admitted that easily enough. Sam nodded and drew a breath.
"What do you remember of the horsemen?"
"The horsemen?" Jehnna repeated. She sounded confused. But he could see on her face that she was thinking back to that day. "I remember Death and War being focused on Haley and Dare. War had armor like Haley. And Death had fire." Jehnna broke off then, frowning with her concentration. "Her eyes looked like Remy's."
Sam nodded. "They did. What do you remember of Famine?"
He saw it the moment she found what he wanted her to remember. Her face paled further and her eyes darkened. He didn't know if it was from emotion or some inner turmoil. But they lost that spark that always seemed to live in them. He hated taking that spark away from her. "She used my powers."
"That's right, Jehnna. Your powers," Sam nodded, his voice soft. She looked up at him, fear quivering in her eyes. Filling them with the first hint of tears. "And mine. The heat and the flames in her pulses of sound waves. Those came from me."
Jehnna shook her head. He didn't know if she was denying his words or denying the thoughts and ideas they had brought roaring to life.
The chair scraped across the floor as she shoved it back and rose from her seat. He watched her stride angrily to the other side of the room. Putting distance between them in the physical sense. And the emotional sense. "No. You're... you're lying."
"I'm so sorry, Jehnna. I wish I wasn't. I don't know how much you know about Sinister. I know your team has never dealt with him before. I made a point of finding all the information I could on any of the villains my team could go up against. There's a lot of information on Sinister back at the school. None of it is nice or pretty." Sam kept his voice soft and gentle. To try and spare her any more pain. Not that it mattered. Jehnna was huddled around herself, arms wrapped tightly around her middle in an effort to keep herself from knowing the truth.
"Liar!" she snarled. Sam suspected, if Sinister had cut them off from their powers, her shout would have knocked him off his feet. God, he hated doing this to her. But there was no way to avoid it. What was coming... She was going to have to face it head on. She couldn't pretend it wasn't happening.
"Sinister is some kind of genius in the field of genetics. Studying them, playing with them, is his passion. He also has an interest in mutants. How their genetics work. There's a lot of stuff about him in the school's computers," Sam told her. Jehnna had her gaze averted, refusing to look at him. That hurt. This whole mess hurt. "The most notable thing in the file is that Sinister sometimes works with Apocalypse. The fact that Apocalypse's horsemen are the ones who brought us here suggests that Sinister made them for Apocalypse."
Sam fell silent so that she could process what he'd told her. So that she could prepare herself for the rest of the information he had to give her. So that he could prepare himself for the task of breaking more bad news to her.
"Pestilence is Morgan's height. And she has wings, Jehnna. I only know of one person who has wings."
"No," Jehnna shook her head. She turned her back toward him. "Stop talking."
"Jehnna, I'm so sorry. I thought you understood what was going on here," he told her, his voice low and soft and gentle. She shook her head, her hair flying around her head wildly.
"Stop talking, Sam!" she snapped.
"Jehnna. Please. You have to listen. You have to understand what's happening. You have to... accept it."
She whirled then, her eyes blazing with anger. Her mouth was pressed thin and flat and color stained her cheeks, visible signs of her rage. Of her hurt. "You're lying. Warren is not with Morgan! He isn't fucking Morgan! He loves me! He's my husband! He would never do that to me! He isn't... He isn't fucking her!"
Her words were a low, rough whisper. The tears were falling freely. And, God help him, she was still beautiful. He wanted to go to her and hold her. But he didn't think she'd allow it. Not yet. And there was more to come. Raw pain washed through him as he stared at the betrayal splashed across her face. Her emotions were raw, her face a mask of everything she felt.
Sam didn't think he'd ever hated himself more than he did in that moment.
"Sinister brought us here and put us together to create horsemen for Apocalypse. He probably paired us the way he did for maximum effect. To blend our powers in a way that would create the strongest mutants possible."
"So, what? You're saying he's using our DNA to create these horsemen?" she asked. Her voice lacked emotion. It was dull and lifeless. A rush of self-loathing ran through him. Sam hated himself for killing the sweetness. For murdering the kind and loving person Jehnna was.
"Yes. He's using our DNA. Mine and yours. Warren and Morgan's. He's using me to have sex with you and get you pregnant. He's using you to incubate the child for him."
~*~
Jehnna stared at Sam, mind blank. It refused to process what he'd just said. It had to be some kind of sick joke. But she'd spent three months with him and she knew he'd never joke about something like that. He loved his family too much to make jokes about them. He was such a kind and gentle soul that he'd never joke about a baby. Or the things that Sinister had done. That he would do.
She could see the toll this conversation was having on him. There was such honest and real anguish on his face. He hated telling her these things. He hated himself for hurting her. It was there in his eyes. She wanted to go to him and hug him. She wanted to tell him he wasn't to blame. But she couldn't.
She just... couldn't.
"So you're saying that Sinister brought us here to... what? Fuck and give him babies to twist?" she asked. It sounded preposterous to her. Terrible. The worst kind of lie. How could anyone do something like that to people? To innocent babies?
"Yes." His reply was soft. She'd seen him cringe with the use of the word 'fuck' and knew she'd hurt him. She felt the urge to apologize but she squashed it. What he was suggesting was monstrous. And she didn't want to believe him. She didn't want to believe any of what he'd told her.
"You're lying," she repeated. Her words were softer this time, but the condemnation was still there.
"I wish to God I was, Jehnna. I wish this was all some terrible dream we could wake up from. But it isn't."
"No. Its a nightmare!" she spat. Her words hurt him, his face twisting in pain for a second or two before he wiped the look away. He kept looking at her with that soft, stoic, understanding expression on his face while he waited. Waited for what, she didn't know. "I am not pregnant. I can't be. I didn't... This is wrong. You're not Warren. I shouldn't be having a baby with anyone but Warren. I'm not pregnant. I'm not! This is a sick joke!"
The tears were falling fast and hard, her nose running shamelessly. She knew her head was going to start pounding before the night was out. And she knew that her behavior was terrible, that she was hurting Sam with her words and her actions. But she couldn't seem to help it. This wasn't right. This wasn't how it was done.
She and Warren had always been careful. Had planned for their children and had acted accordingly. It simply couldn't be. She couldn't be pregnant. Sam had to be lying.
She'd barely had the thought when her stomach rumbled ominously. Jehnna hurried for the bathroom, slammed the door open in her rush to make it to the toilet in time. She was on her knees by the toilet, face over the bowl, in an less than ten seconds. She'd barely started heaving when she felt Sam beside her. One hand held her hair up and away so that she didn't accidentally vomit on it. The other hand was on her back, rubbing it gently in soothing circles.
It didn't take long to empty the contents of her stomach. She hadn't eaten much over the course of the day. When the heaving was over, she leaned back into Sam's warmth and worked at pushing aside the heaving the followed actual throwing up. While she did so, one of Sam's hands stroked her hair back from her face while the other held her close to him. He said nothing, just offered silent support. His uncomplicated tenderness made her feel like such a bitch.
"Come on, Jehnna. Let's go sit down and talk," he said gently.
The lack of anger or hate in his voice made her want to cry again. She forced the urge aside and allowed him to haul her to her feet. She felt a little wobbly and took comfort in the way he held her close and kept her upright. It didn't take long to reach the love seat and Sam made sure she was sitting and comfortable before taking a seat beside her. When he reached for her hand, she let him take it. After all, none of this was really his fault.
"I can't be pregnant," she whispered softly. Her free hand moved to settle over her stomach. It was still flat.
Sam offered her a sad smile. "I know you don't want it to be truth, Jehnna. But I think we're past the point where we can deny that you getting pregnant is a that isn't going to happen. It is a very real thing that is very likely to happen. Not probably will happen. But likely. You've been green a few times this week. You haven't eaten enough to constitute a full meal several days in a row. And just now. Your show of temper and the tears. That isn't like you. You're usually level-headed."
She lifted her gaze to his face and stared at him. "You think I'm already pregnant."
"I'm pretty sure of it, yeah," he nodded. His face was a carefully constructed mask. She couldn't tell what he felt or thought of that. Not knowing kind of hurt.
Jehnna sighed and shook her head. There was too much to wrap her head around. Just the information about Sinister was more than she could handle. But the other news? "This can't be," she muttered quietly. "You're not Warren."
"Jehnna. Honey. There is no rule that you can and have to only have children with your husband or partner," he told her gently. A faint smile touched his lips, as if he suddenly found something funny. "If that were true, there'd be a couple fewer kids running around the mansion."
She looked at him, confused, for a moment. Then she realized he was talking about Dee and Tam. Jehnna felt terrible for inadvertently insinuating that Dare and Morgan had done something terrible by having someone else's child. She knew that Deirdre was Victor Creed's child. Damn near everyone knew. And she knew that information hadn't stopped Logan from loving Dare. Or Dee. It hadn't stopped him from taking one look at Dee as a baby and falling in love with her. It hadn't stopped him from treating her like his own flesh and blood. And she knew that Tam, who looked so much like Morgan, was Logan's child. And Remy had never once let that influence how he loved the boy. Or how he interacted with the boy.
She'd never once judged her teammates for the pregnancies that had come out of a horrible situation. And she shouldn't be judging it now. But she'd been raised to believe that children were the product of a loving marriage between a man and woman who happened to be married to one another. The idea that she was pregnant with Sam's child was so very hard to wrap her head around. Even worse, the idea that the child she might be carrying would be used as a mindless killer was impossible to deal with.
On top of that, she didn't even know how to deal with the idea that Warren might be having sex with Morgan. That he might get her pregnant. That he might enjoy it as much as he enjoyed having sex with her. This whole thing was just... "Wrong," she whispered.
"What?" Sam asked, his free hand stroking the one his other held.
"This whole thing is wrong. All of it. I shouldn't be pregnant with your child. Warren shouldn't be sleeping with Morgan. We shouldn't be captives. None of this," she motioned toward the room they were in with her free hand. "None of this should be happening."
"No. It shouldn't. In a kinder world, things would have continued on just as they'd been going," he told her gently. Then a shadow passed over his face. "And that would have been a shame. Because I would never have gotten the chance to know what a funny and smart woman you are. I knew you were beautiful. And I thought Warren was a lucky man. I envied him, you know. Just a little bit."
"Sam?" she asked. His words were some kind of odd confession that made butterflies take flight in her stomach. Hell, it felt like they were fluttering their way up her throat and wanted out in the worst way possible.
"You're so beautiful, Jehnna. You're sweet. You're amazing. You are..." he stopped and drew a breath, as if he was fortifying himself before finishing his sentence. "You are the most amazing person I've ever met and I am head over heels in love with you."
"Sam. I..." she began, but fell silent. What did she say? What could she say. She felt certain that she still loved Warren. He'd been her world for a long time. He'd been her everything.
Sam, though. She felt like they were kindred spirits. She felt so good and safe at his side. She loved the slow drawl in his voice and the way his hands, so big and rough from work, felt against her skin. She loved the way his eyes shone when he looked at her, the secret smiles he wore when she caught him looking at her. She loved how he touched her, how he was reverent and loving. And, truth be told, she loved the way he made love to her. As if he could spend all eternity showing her that he wanted her. She'd always thought Warren was the only one who could do those things. The only one who could hold her heart.
She'd been wrong. So, so wrong. And that knowledge was tearing her in two. How did she reconcile that she could love Warren and Sam, too? Because she did. She couldn't pinpoint when it had happened. She couldn't even pinpoint one reason why. That would be like trying to count all of the stars in the heavens. But it had happened and she didn't know what to do with herself anymore.
"You don't have to say anything, Jehnna. I understand. You love Warren. I can't compete with him in looks or wealth or anything. All I've got to offer you is my love. And - "
She put her free hand up against his mouth, bringing his words to an end. Sam stared at her, eyes searching her face for something. She gave him a smile. It wasn't her best. It was watery and it was kind of weak. But it was all she had. "I don't know what happens when we leave this place, Sam. I don't know what will happen to you and I. To Warren and I . We'll face that when we get there. "
It was a promise. To him. And to herself. She drew a breath and made herself go on. "I know you think I'm pregnant. Maybe I am. I don't know yet. I don't want to believe it. Because that means I have to face what Sinister will do to our baby." Her heart started pounding at the words 'our baby' and she tried to ignore how warm and happy the idea made her feel. "What I do know, in the here and now. What I do believe is that I love you. Part of me still feels its wrong. But if it is, I don't want to be right. So I guess we can deal with that and then maybe the rest will... just fall into place."
Sam gave her a smile, a wide one that was like the sun coming out from behind the clouds. Then he pulled her gently into his arms and kisser her until her toes curled and her brain melted. She pressed herself against him, a silent invitation that he eagerly accepted.
Sam swung her up into her arms, his lips never breaking from hers, and carried her over to the bed. As he took her down to it, as he stripped her naked and ran his hands over her flesh, she said a prayer to whatever powers there were that wanted to listen.
Please let us go home. Let us figure this out. Please let us have a happily ever after. All of us."
Chapter Twelve: The Reckoning, part 1
Fandom: the Marvel universe
Rating: 18 and up
Warnings: graphic violence, language, sex, dark themes, anything else i can toss in.
Disclaimer: the recognizable characters and places contained herein are the property of Marvel. i'm merely borrowing for the sake of entertainment. no money is being made from this venture. Haley belongs to
dazzledfirestar Morgan belongs toginevra Roxxy belongs tonanaeanaven Jehnna belongs to silverfox_chan and Dare belongs to me. the concept and title of The Mary Sue Virus are used with permission from dazzledfirestar . Author's Notes: this is almost entirely Daz's fault. okay. so it really isn't. its actually almost 100% my fault. Daz just did a whole lot of encouraging. this fic is going to be kind of dark, so please keep that in mind while reading.
Among the Strong - the index
"This is the third time this week you've thrown my pillow at me." Warren bent over to pick up the offending article, returning it to the side of the bed that had been designated as his.
Morgan's voice, still heavy with sleep, was muffled by her own pillow. "That's because this is the third time this week you've woken me up before I was ready to get up." She showed no intention of climbing from the bed. Which wouldn't normally be a problem. But Sinister had them on a schedule and they'd found out the hard way that he disliked having the schedule interrupted.
"You're normally up before I am, Morgan," he added. She didn't turn toward him. She didn't speak. But she did lift a finger in his direction, letting him know exactly what she thought of him at that exact moment. He frowned at that. This wasn't like Morgan. Slowly, almost cautiously, he settled on the edge of the bed and reached out a hand to rest on her shoulder. "Is there something going on that I don't know about, Morgan? This isn't like you."
He heard her sigh, then she rolled over so that she was looking up at him. There were faint smudges of fatigue under her eyes, but she looked okay. Her color seemed good and a palm against her cheek told him it wasn't warm. She nuzzled into the touch, something she'd been doing with more frequency ever since he'd called her on her bullshit. Hell, so much had happened in the past month and a half.
He paused a moment to think about that. Three months in this place, whatever and where ever it was, and it felt like it had been always. Forever. An odd thing, to be sure, because three months certainly wasn't forever. But the intensity of his emotions had only grown. And he felt certain that Morgan's had grown, too. He'd seen less of her flirty side as the days had passed. They were capable of regular, real conversations without a flash of sarcasm to push him away from her. They took joy in simple things, like bathing with one another. Cuddling on the couch and in bed. Talking about long buried hopes and dreams. Sharing memories that were filled with joy. And with sorrow. She'd told him the story of how she'd met Dare. How they'd spent literal years separated but Faye had brought Morgan images of events and bits of dreams.
He'd held Morgan when she'd admitted to being lost without Faye. When she'd cried over the part of her that was missing. She'd told him about the link that had been forged between Dare and herself. Then Remy and herself. And then Logan and herself. How Faye tied them all together. She'd shared her worries that they were as lost without her as she was without them.
He'd shared with her how much being part of the team meant to Jehnna. How much Jehnna loved her team mates and friends. And how much they frustrated her in turns. He shared stories of his time as an X-Man, just as she shared stories about her missions. They'd bonded over the emotions they held over their children. And their friends. They'd talked about the tragedies in their lives. They'd shared highs and lows. Warren felt like he knew a great deal about Morgan. And he was confident she knew a good deal about him.
He wasn't afraid to say that he loved her. Some part of him felt that being trapped in this place together had made such a thing inevitable. Close contact and constant sex tended to do weird things to one's brain. Of course, the seeds of such emotions had to have been present before the forced cohabitation had begun. And he supposed something had been there. He and Jehnna had been together for a long time. Which meant he spent time around all of her team. Friendships had been forged years ago.
Haley was as much a capable leader as she was a capable friend. He knew that part had been rocky in the beginning. She'd been closer to Morgan and Roxxy than Jehnna and Dare at the start. He'd heard the speculation, back when she'd started her team, that she'd only asked Morgan because of her friendship with Dare. And people had considered Jehnna an odd choice. But he'd seen firsthand just how wrong that speculation had been. Haley had made solid, informed decisions about who she'd wanted on her team. And time had proven her decisions had been the right ones. Now, more than ten years into the team, she'd proven that the five of them were more than five friends on a team. She'd turned them into a family.
Roxxy was the solid anchor of the group. She was always the rational one. The one who could always be counted on. She'd been Haley's best friend for as long as Warren could remember. And she provided the balance that the team needed at times. Not that she didn't have her moments of playfulness. She just didn't allow herself to have as many as her friends did.
Despite people's misgivings, Jehnna had proved herself a fairly logical choice. She had strong powers that could be useful in most fights. The only problem had been her lack of training. And her confidence. Training with Scott had been both a blessing and a curse for her. Scott had been a great choice for her in terms of using her powers with precision. But his desire to keep people safe had done a number on her confidence. Still, she'd managed to blossom and grow and her control and precision were top notch.
Morgan had seemed an odd choice because of her powers. They really weren't the kind of powers you'd find in someone on a team meant to help and save and be heroes. Most people hadn't thought Morgan would do well on a team, They'd thought her abilities ill-suited for field work. So there'd been speculation that she'd only been given a place on the team because that meant Dare became an option. Dare was the one person any team might actually want to recruit. Of course there were other people out there who worked with fire. But there was no one else who could simply think the flames into existence. Public opinion had been that Haley hadn't really wanted Morgan, but had compromised and asked to bring Dare into the lineup.
That rumor still persisted, no matter how much Haley denied it. But there weren't many people who believed it simply because Morgan had proven that her mutation could work to their advantage in damn near every situation. Her twin, Faye, had proven that they both had something to offer the team. And time spent with Jehnna meant time spent with her friends. Dinners out when everyone was home and nothing was pressing. Game nights. Movie nights. Things that came up spontaneously that allowed them all to socialize. Even things that weren't spontaneous, like joint missions, that showed just who they were as heroes. As people.
He'd had years to get to know the members of Purple Team. Years to befriend all of them. Years to develop deeper feelings for them. Years to get to where he was at present. Which was trapped God knew where with a woman who was not his wife in a room filled with pheromones that gave them no choice but to get to know one another. Everything he'd learned about Morgan had told him she was more than the flirt everyone had thought her to be. She was warm, caring, smart, and funny. And three months in the same room had taken all of those things he knew and it had woven them into something larger. Something new. Something bright and beautiful.
Warren had fallen head over heels for Morgan and he knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that something was wrong. Because this wasn't the way Morgan generally behaved. "What's wrong, sweetheart? This isn't like you. You aren't acting like yourself and I'm worried."
His words saw Morgan smiling up at him. It was perhaps a little bit sleepy, but it was a smile. "That's sweet of you, Warren. I promise, I'm fine." She turned her face so that she could press a kiss to his palm. It was a tickle of sensation that filled him with pleasure. He reveled in that sensation a moment, then took a moment to really consider her actions. It felt like a genuine offering of affection in response to his concern. But it also felt like it could be a way of distracting him from the faint worry that gnawed at the back of his brain.
He was sure something was off. Morgan had been a lot sleepier than usual in the past few weeks. And he was sure he'd seen her frown at a meal or two. "Come on, Morgan. I thought we were past the games," he said gently.
"I am not playing with you, Warren. I promise," she replied. Her tone was laced with sincerity. If she was lying, it was with the most honest look he'd ever seen. He wanted to believe her, but something told him that his instincts were dead on.
"Morgan," he tried once more.
She pulled herself into a sitting position. Doing so pulled her tank top tight against her breasts, dragging his attention to the way they seemed to strain against the soft, cottony material. When his gaze slid back up to her face, she was reaching for him with both hands. He let her pull him into her without fighting. "I swear, Warren. Nothing is wrong. I'm fine."
He let her kiss the concern and fear away, falling into the way her lips ate at his. Soon enough, there were no thoughts left in his head and the mattress cradled their bodies as he guided her back down onto it.
~*~
She wasn't fine.
Morgan let the thought slide across her grey matter even as she watched Warren disappear into the bathroom. She hated lying to him, but she wasn't ready to talk about what was going on. Hell, she'd only barely started thinking about what the hell was going on herself.
She let her gaze shift to the calendar that was conveniently on display close to the bed. It had shown up there not long after they'd been brought to this place. Maybe Sinister had decided that empty walls were boring and had taken pity on them with a calendar that had a different nature photo accompanying each month. Or maybe Sinister had put it there for another reason entirely.
There'd been a discussion between Warren and herself sometime in the first few weeks they'd been here. A discussion about what Sinister might want with them. Warren knew a thing or two about Sinister. More than Morgan did. And he'd said that their captor was very interested in genetics. That had started Morgan thinking about everything that had happened. She'd started with the fight in the desert with the horsemen. Despite the fact that the encounter had been hectic and face-paced, Morgan had had opportunity to get a look at all four of them.
With nothing but time on her hands, she'd been able to really see details more clearly. And she'd seen herself in Pestilence. She'd seen Haley in War and Jehnna in Famine. Worse, she'd seen Dare in Death. And, when she'd thought on it harder, she'd seen other things, too. Things that had filled her with worry. Things that had made her try all the harder to resist Warren and his suave masculinity. Some part of her had known that this would be a bad idea from start to finish. She'd tried so hard to avoid any emotional entanglements and keep things strictly sex.
Warren had blown that attempt right out of the water.
Morgan listened as the shower came on. She welcomed the few minutes of alone time that would afford her. Being around Warren was hard on her equilibrium. He left her unbalanced and on the verge of tripping over her own heart. She'd felt the same way about Remy back in the beginning. She'd tried to avoid falling for him, too. And yet... Here she was. Morgan cursed herself a fool for falling for Warren.
And she cursed herself for not paying better attention to what was going on. Of course she'd gone back to old habits the minute she'd realized that she and Warren weren't getting out of that room any time soon. And, for a time, she'd been good about keeping track of that most important detail. But somewhere along the line, Warren had wormed his way past her defenses and she'd lost track of everything. She was just surprised that something like this hadn't happened earlier in their stay here.
The exhaustion had started a week or more ago. And, at first, she'd put it down to some kind of depression. It was hard not to be depressed when you were being held prisoner in the same room as a friend's husband. And you were being forced to have sex with that friend's husband. She'd had her days of sleeping around, but she'd never intentionally poached a friend's partner, be it boyfriend or husband. There was guilt hovering in the background. She wasn't sure she could ever apologize to Jehnna enough when she got back home. It didn't matter to her that there were pheromones that controlled their urges. It didn't matter that she really couldn't stop herself from falling into his arms and making love with him again and again. She'd done something so terribly wrong and she'd fallen for a friend's partner.
Again.
For a moment, she saw Remy's face in her mind's eye. His warm smile. The angles of his cheeks and the fullness of his lips. She heard the bourbon-smooth sound of his laugh and felt the stroke of his very agile fingers. And she felt the weight of his eyes resting against her skin as he gazed at her. Then it was Logan's blue gaze that ran over her skin. His toothy smile that looked so frightening but meant sweet, tender things. She recalled how he was so tender with her. With Dare, too. And she remembered how he was a solid, warm anchor when things were chaotic.
She knew, without a doubt, somewhere in the back of her mind, that Remy was here. And she knew who was with him. Dare's grey eyes stared out of the shadows in her mind, her face pale and her lower lip caught between her teeth as she worried about what Morgan would say. What she'd do. She knew that this was going to make Dare hate herself more than she already did. Because she knew that Dare would feel as if she was betraying Morgan and Logan. As if she, like Morgan, had any choice in the matter.
She had to fight the urge to go in search of the link. It wasn't there. Somehow, Sinister had figured out how to cut her off from those closest to her. She hated that she was so alone in her head. She needed them now. Because she'd realized quickly enough that the exhaustion had nothing to do with depression.
When she'd almost gagged at breakfast the first time, she'd taken it for the sign it was.
She tried to figure out when it had happened. But she couldn't. There was so much sex that it all blurred together. Especially since she and Warren rumpled the sheets on a daily basis. She'd lost track of the count. So she didn't know. And that scared her.
The sound of the shower still filling her ears, Morgan pushed the blankets aside and sat up. Then she stared down at her belly. She saw nothing. She cupped it with her hands. She felt nothing. But she knew. She knew without a shadow of a doubt. She just... knew.
A tear trickled out of the corner of her eye. This wasn't how things were supposed to have gone. This wasn't... Why had Sinister made her part of this madness? The tears came harder, fell faster. She indulged while she could, purged it from her system. Because she knew, if Warren saw her crying, he'd demand answers. And she didn't know how to tell him this. She could barely admit to herself that she was in love with him.
How could she admit this?
~*~
He watched as her fork pushed bits of food around. Tonight's meal was salmon with a garlic butter sauce, steamed broccoli, and roasted red potatoes. The salmon was tender and flaky, the garlic butter melted over it to lend some flavor. The potatoes were crisp on the outside and fluffy inside, seasoned simply with salt and pepper. The broccoli nearly snapped when bitten into. It had been drizzled with melted butter. It was a tasty meal. And Jehnna hadn't even touched it.
This was the fourth time this week he'd seen her push her food around on the plate. Oh, she'd tried to be subtle about it. But it was hard to hide something like that when they were the only two people in the room. And there had been the few occasions when he'd seen just a touch of green in her face when their meal had come. He'd seen it just a little bit ago when the salmon plates had arrived. And the other day when they'd been served a seafood gumbo.
Sam sighed and put his fork down. He'd let it go the other times. But he couldn't let it go any longer. He could see what was going on. The thing that struck him was Jehnna didn't seem to see it. Was she that sheltered and innocent or was she blatantly ignoring the signs? He didn't know. But it was time to find out. "Jehnna."
His voice must have startled her, because her fork slipped from her hand to clatter loudly against the table. When she looked up at him, her eyes were wide and maybe touched with a little finger of fear. That look made him think it was denial. "I'm sorry, Sam," she replied, forcing a stiff smile onto her lips. "I guess my mind was wandering."
"We need to talk, Jehnna," he said, his voice as gentle as he could make it. That brought that touch of fear closer to the surface. Made it stronger. He put his fork down and stared at her across the table.
Jehnna was always pale, but her skin was paler than usual. She had a natural rosiness to her cheeks that was curiously absent. And there was a faint tint of green lingering at the corners of her mouth. He thought that there might have been a little bit of fatigue around her eyes, but it was hard to tell with the way she was staring at him with eyes opened so wide.
"About what, Sam?" she asked, false cheeriness painting her words.
"About this," he responded and waved his hand in her general direction. The move seemed to puzzle her because the wide-eyed look slid away to be replaced with confusion.
"About what? I don't think I understand."
"Why do you think Sinister is keeping us here, Jehnna?" he questioned, hoping that she knew what was going on. He didn't relish having to explain everything to her. He didn't want to hurt her. He knew she felt something for him. But her heart belonged to Warren. What Sinister was doing... Her life was going to be so much harder than she could ever imagine when this was all over with.
She stared at him as if she didn't understand the question. After several long seconds, she made some gesture with her hand and reached for her fork. "He's using us to get off because he's some kind of weird pervert that likes to watch."
"Well, I mean. You're not wrong. But that isn't the only reason we're here, Jehnna." He considered his options. Come right out with it or make Jehnna figure things out. He opted to let her work it out. Chances were good, if he told her straight up what was going on, she wouldn't believe him. She'd find some way to laugh and call him silly and insist he was imagining things. And she'd avoid thinking about it entirely. She couldn't push this away, couldn't put it on the back burner and ignore it. She had to see what was going on. She had to realize what kind of trouble they were actually in. And he was sure the only way that would happen was for Jehnna to think about it. All of it.
He was such an asshole.
"What do you remember from the fight, Jehnna?" he asked her softly.
"It was hectic. And it all happened so fast that I could barely hold my own." She admitted that easily enough. Sam nodded and drew a breath.
"What do you remember of the horsemen?"
"The horsemen?" Jehnna repeated. She sounded confused. But he could see on her face that she was thinking back to that day. "I remember Death and War being focused on Haley and Dare. War had armor like Haley. And Death had fire." Jehnna broke off then, frowning with her concentration. "Her eyes looked like Remy's."
Sam nodded. "They did. What do you remember of Famine?"
He saw it the moment she found what he wanted her to remember. Her face paled further and her eyes darkened. He didn't know if it was from emotion or some inner turmoil. But they lost that spark that always seemed to live in them. He hated taking that spark away from her. "She used my powers."
"That's right, Jehnna. Your powers," Sam nodded, his voice soft. She looked up at him, fear quivering in her eyes. Filling them with the first hint of tears. "And mine. The heat and the flames in her pulses of sound waves. Those came from me."
Jehnna shook her head. He didn't know if she was denying his words or denying the thoughts and ideas they had brought roaring to life.
The chair scraped across the floor as she shoved it back and rose from her seat. He watched her stride angrily to the other side of the room. Putting distance between them in the physical sense. And the emotional sense. "No. You're... you're lying."
"I'm so sorry, Jehnna. I wish I wasn't. I don't know how much you know about Sinister. I know your team has never dealt with him before. I made a point of finding all the information I could on any of the villains my team could go up against. There's a lot of information on Sinister back at the school. None of it is nice or pretty." Sam kept his voice soft and gentle. To try and spare her any more pain. Not that it mattered. Jehnna was huddled around herself, arms wrapped tightly around her middle in an effort to keep herself from knowing the truth.
"Liar!" she snarled. Sam suspected, if Sinister had cut them off from their powers, her shout would have knocked him off his feet. God, he hated doing this to her. But there was no way to avoid it. What was coming... She was going to have to face it head on. She couldn't pretend it wasn't happening.
"Sinister is some kind of genius in the field of genetics. Studying them, playing with them, is his passion. He also has an interest in mutants. How their genetics work. There's a lot of stuff about him in the school's computers," Sam told her. Jehnna had her gaze averted, refusing to look at him. That hurt. This whole mess hurt. "The most notable thing in the file is that Sinister sometimes works with Apocalypse. The fact that Apocalypse's horsemen are the ones who brought us here suggests that Sinister made them for Apocalypse."
Sam fell silent so that she could process what he'd told her. So that she could prepare herself for the rest of the information he had to give her. So that he could prepare himself for the task of breaking more bad news to her.
"Pestilence is Morgan's height. And she has wings, Jehnna. I only know of one person who has wings."
"No," Jehnna shook her head. She turned her back toward him. "Stop talking."
"Jehnna, I'm so sorry. I thought you understood what was going on here," he told her, his voice low and soft and gentle. She shook her head, her hair flying around her head wildly.
"Stop talking, Sam!" she snapped.
"Jehnna. Please. You have to listen. You have to understand what's happening. You have to... accept it."
She whirled then, her eyes blazing with anger. Her mouth was pressed thin and flat and color stained her cheeks, visible signs of her rage. Of her hurt. "You're lying. Warren is not with Morgan! He isn't fucking Morgan! He loves me! He's my husband! He would never do that to me! He isn't... He isn't fucking her!"
Her words were a low, rough whisper. The tears were falling freely. And, God help him, she was still beautiful. He wanted to go to her and hold her. But he didn't think she'd allow it. Not yet. And there was more to come. Raw pain washed through him as he stared at the betrayal splashed across her face. Her emotions were raw, her face a mask of everything she felt.
Sam didn't think he'd ever hated himself more than he did in that moment.
"Sinister brought us here and put us together to create horsemen for Apocalypse. He probably paired us the way he did for maximum effect. To blend our powers in a way that would create the strongest mutants possible."
"So, what? You're saying he's using our DNA to create these horsemen?" she asked. Her voice lacked emotion. It was dull and lifeless. A rush of self-loathing ran through him. Sam hated himself for killing the sweetness. For murdering the kind and loving person Jehnna was.
"Yes. He's using our DNA. Mine and yours. Warren and Morgan's. He's using me to have sex with you and get you pregnant. He's using you to incubate the child for him."
~*~
Jehnna stared at Sam, mind blank. It refused to process what he'd just said. It had to be some kind of sick joke. But she'd spent three months with him and she knew he'd never joke about something like that. He loved his family too much to make jokes about them. He was such a kind and gentle soul that he'd never joke about a baby. Or the things that Sinister had done. That he would do.
She could see the toll this conversation was having on him. There was such honest and real anguish on his face. He hated telling her these things. He hated himself for hurting her. It was there in his eyes. She wanted to go to him and hug him. She wanted to tell him he wasn't to blame. But she couldn't.
She just... couldn't.
"So you're saying that Sinister brought us here to... what? Fuck and give him babies to twist?" she asked. It sounded preposterous to her. Terrible. The worst kind of lie. How could anyone do something like that to people? To innocent babies?
"Yes." His reply was soft. She'd seen him cringe with the use of the word 'fuck' and knew she'd hurt him. She felt the urge to apologize but she squashed it. What he was suggesting was monstrous. And she didn't want to believe him. She didn't want to believe any of what he'd told her.
"You're lying," she repeated. Her words were softer this time, but the condemnation was still there.
"I wish to God I was, Jehnna. I wish this was all some terrible dream we could wake up from. But it isn't."
"No. Its a nightmare!" she spat. Her words hurt him, his face twisting in pain for a second or two before he wiped the look away. He kept looking at her with that soft, stoic, understanding expression on his face while he waited. Waited for what, she didn't know. "I am not pregnant. I can't be. I didn't... This is wrong. You're not Warren. I shouldn't be having a baby with anyone but Warren. I'm not pregnant. I'm not! This is a sick joke!"
The tears were falling fast and hard, her nose running shamelessly. She knew her head was going to start pounding before the night was out. And she knew that her behavior was terrible, that she was hurting Sam with her words and her actions. But she couldn't seem to help it. This wasn't right. This wasn't how it was done.
She and Warren had always been careful. Had planned for their children and had acted accordingly. It simply couldn't be. She couldn't be pregnant. Sam had to be lying.
She'd barely had the thought when her stomach rumbled ominously. Jehnna hurried for the bathroom, slammed the door open in her rush to make it to the toilet in time. She was on her knees by the toilet, face over the bowl, in an less than ten seconds. She'd barely started heaving when she felt Sam beside her. One hand held her hair up and away so that she didn't accidentally vomit on it. The other hand was on her back, rubbing it gently in soothing circles.
It didn't take long to empty the contents of her stomach. She hadn't eaten much over the course of the day. When the heaving was over, she leaned back into Sam's warmth and worked at pushing aside the heaving the followed actual throwing up. While she did so, one of Sam's hands stroked her hair back from her face while the other held her close to him. He said nothing, just offered silent support. His uncomplicated tenderness made her feel like such a bitch.
"Come on, Jehnna. Let's go sit down and talk," he said gently.
The lack of anger or hate in his voice made her want to cry again. She forced the urge aside and allowed him to haul her to her feet. She felt a little wobbly and took comfort in the way he held her close and kept her upright. It didn't take long to reach the love seat and Sam made sure she was sitting and comfortable before taking a seat beside her. When he reached for her hand, she let him take it. After all, none of this was really his fault.
"I can't be pregnant," she whispered softly. Her free hand moved to settle over her stomach. It was still flat.
Sam offered her a sad smile. "I know you don't want it to be truth, Jehnna. But I think we're past the point where we can deny that you getting pregnant is a that isn't going to happen. It is a very real thing that is very likely to happen. Not probably will happen. But likely. You've been green a few times this week. You haven't eaten enough to constitute a full meal several days in a row. And just now. Your show of temper and the tears. That isn't like you. You're usually level-headed."
She lifted her gaze to his face and stared at him. "You think I'm already pregnant."
"I'm pretty sure of it, yeah," he nodded. His face was a carefully constructed mask. She couldn't tell what he felt or thought of that. Not knowing kind of hurt.
Jehnna sighed and shook her head. There was too much to wrap her head around. Just the information about Sinister was more than she could handle. But the other news? "This can't be," she muttered quietly. "You're not Warren."
"Jehnna. Honey. There is no rule that you can and have to only have children with your husband or partner," he told her gently. A faint smile touched his lips, as if he suddenly found something funny. "If that were true, there'd be a couple fewer kids running around the mansion."
She looked at him, confused, for a moment. Then she realized he was talking about Dee and Tam. Jehnna felt terrible for inadvertently insinuating that Dare and Morgan had done something terrible by having someone else's child. She knew that Deirdre was Victor Creed's child. Damn near everyone knew. And she knew that information hadn't stopped Logan from loving Dare. Or Dee. It hadn't stopped him from taking one look at Dee as a baby and falling in love with her. It hadn't stopped him from treating her like his own flesh and blood. And she knew that Tam, who looked so much like Morgan, was Logan's child. And Remy had never once let that influence how he loved the boy. Or how he interacted with the boy.
She'd never once judged her teammates for the pregnancies that had come out of a horrible situation. And she shouldn't be judging it now. But she'd been raised to believe that children were the product of a loving marriage between a man and woman who happened to be married to one another. The idea that she was pregnant with Sam's child was so very hard to wrap her head around. Even worse, the idea that the child she might be carrying would be used as a mindless killer was impossible to deal with.
On top of that, she didn't even know how to deal with the idea that Warren might be having sex with Morgan. That he might get her pregnant. That he might enjoy it as much as he enjoyed having sex with her. This whole thing was just... "Wrong," she whispered.
"What?" Sam asked, his free hand stroking the one his other held.
"This whole thing is wrong. All of it. I shouldn't be pregnant with your child. Warren shouldn't be sleeping with Morgan. We shouldn't be captives. None of this," she motioned toward the room they were in with her free hand. "None of this should be happening."
"No. It shouldn't. In a kinder world, things would have continued on just as they'd been going," he told her gently. Then a shadow passed over his face. "And that would have been a shame. Because I would never have gotten the chance to know what a funny and smart woman you are. I knew you were beautiful. And I thought Warren was a lucky man. I envied him, you know. Just a little bit."
"Sam?" she asked. His words were some kind of odd confession that made butterflies take flight in her stomach. Hell, it felt like they were fluttering their way up her throat and wanted out in the worst way possible.
"You're so beautiful, Jehnna. You're sweet. You're amazing. You are..." he stopped and drew a breath, as if he was fortifying himself before finishing his sentence. "You are the most amazing person I've ever met and I am head over heels in love with you."
"Sam. I..." she began, but fell silent. What did she say? What could she say. She felt certain that she still loved Warren. He'd been her world for a long time. He'd been her everything.
Sam, though. She felt like they were kindred spirits. She felt so good and safe at his side. She loved the slow drawl in his voice and the way his hands, so big and rough from work, felt against her skin. She loved the way his eyes shone when he looked at her, the secret smiles he wore when she caught him looking at her. She loved how he touched her, how he was reverent and loving. And, truth be told, she loved the way he made love to her. As if he could spend all eternity showing her that he wanted her. She'd always thought Warren was the only one who could do those things. The only one who could hold her heart.
She'd been wrong. So, so wrong. And that knowledge was tearing her in two. How did she reconcile that she could love Warren and Sam, too? Because she did. She couldn't pinpoint when it had happened. She couldn't even pinpoint one reason why. That would be like trying to count all of the stars in the heavens. But it had happened and she didn't know what to do with herself anymore.
"You don't have to say anything, Jehnna. I understand. You love Warren. I can't compete with him in looks or wealth or anything. All I've got to offer you is my love. And - "
She put her free hand up against his mouth, bringing his words to an end. Sam stared at her, eyes searching her face for something. She gave him a smile. It wasn't her best. It was watery and it was kind of weak. But it was all she had. "I don't know what happens when we leave this place, Sam. I don't know what will happen to you and I. To Warren and I . We'll face that when we get there. "
It was a promise. To him. And to herself. She drew a breath and made herself go on. "I know you think I'm pregnant. Maybe I am. I don't know yet. I don't want to believe it. Because that means I have to face what Sinister will do to our baby." Her heart started pounding at the words 'our baby' and she tried to ignore how warm and happy the idea made her feel. "What I do know, in the here and now. What I do believe is that I love you. Part of me still feels its wrong. But if it is, I don't want to be right. So I guess we can deal with that and then maybe the rest will... just fall into place."
Sam gave her a smile, a wide one that was like the sun coming out from behind the clouds. Then he pulled her gently into his arms and kisser her until her toes curled and her brain melted. She pressed herself against him, a silent invitation that he eagerly accepted.
Sam swung her up into her arms, his lips never breaking from hers, and carried her over to the bed. As he took her down to it, as he stripped her naked and ran his hands over her flesh, she said a prayer to whatever powers there were that wanted to listen.
Please let us go home. Let us figure this out. Please let us have a happily ever after. All of us."
