Water. There was water everywhere. In his body and thoughts, he could see it, swirling, churning, turning in all directions. However, it was such a sensation that it wouldn’t escape his mind. No matter how hard he tried to escape, how much he struggled in vain against those impossible waves that crashed into his thought and filled him down into his very core, he simply couldn’t escape them. To make matters worse, thoughts were so fragmented and strained, almost as if spread thin over a surface far too large for him to truly comprehend everything.

What was that about? How could his mind be there, drowning, and yet feel split into so many places at once. It reminded him of seaweed drifting lazily upon the surface of the rolling waves: no direction, no focus, absolutely nothing but random fragments that, more often than not, were drowned out by roaring call of water. It was a nightmare.

But still. He tried. He tried to pull all those thoughts together, tried to get them pulled into a central focus so that he could string some semblance of a mind together again. But it was proving to be far harder than he could have ever dreamed:

Need to focu--

Need to bre--

Fish swimming all aro--

The setting sun--

The rising mo--

A humpback whale breaching the surfa--

A man in ruined boat screams for help in the heavens!

AHHH!!!

It was too hard. It was too hard to focus. His mind was like a shattered pane of glass, stretched out to the far corners of the earth, the chips and crumbles grinding against one another as they were forced to fit into places that they didn’t belong. Water. Splashing. Fish. There was no way! There was no way to bring it all back together. It was lost forever. She was lost forever. She…?

Gemma. Gemma. Gemma. Gemma. Gemma. Gemma. Gemma. Gemma.

***

In wee morning hours of a calm, winter morning, on the shoreline outside of New York harbor, a strange sight befell those who participated in morning jobs and greeted the early rise of the sun with a wave. While strange sights were by no means out of the ordinary for New York City, even New Yorkers had their limits. In this case, it would be the clearly nude man who lay, face down, in the sand of one of the smaller beaches that ran along the shore line. A few less than caring individuals cat-called, some snapped photos with their phones to share with friends and/or co-workers over morning coffee. But there were some, those with a bigger heart, who actually stopped to circle around to see if the man was okay.

Fingers digging into the sand, the caramel-skinned man breathed in a dirty breath, one filled with sand and sour air. The sensation was so alien to his conscious mind that he gasped and sputtered, choking on normal air for half a moment before his lungs finally remembered how to work on their own. Pain radiated from all corners of his body, but the most prevalent seemed to come from a scar that was dead center in his chest, faded white due to the passage of age. The man struggled to place his hand upon the spot, shaking as he gripped the flesh and ground his teeth with the exhaustive movements.

Confusion and pain. That was all he knew at the moment as he struggled to sit up, ignoring the chattering sounds that seemingly attacked him from all sides. It took a moment, but eventually his ears finally managed to separate out the noise from the familiar – talking. He was being spoken to? He struggled, moving into a sitting position, feeling someone brace his back from behind, helping to hold him up. Another breath and his gagged again, but it was getting easier. Now, he just had to focus on the talking.

“Sir, can you tell me your name? Are you okay?”

Another gulp. Confusion wracked his mind for a second, working through the rapidly draining water that had seemingly bogged down his mind. It took a moment of diving deep into the meaning of those words, trying to understand them. Eventually he did and a raspy, tired voice responded

”Jorge,” he finally whispered. ”My name is Jorge…Cervantes…”

Skipping rocks and hiding out on the beach had been the most exciting outing Leo had managed since the prison break incident. Any other exploits from now on were going to be online only. Or maybe in verified abandoned buildings. Getting shot-at just wasn't his jam.

His phone chirruped in his pocket indicating that he'd gotten a private message on the forums, probably his 5th since he'd gotten off the bus. All ignored. Whatever it was could wait. Leo bent at the waist and grabbed up another rock that looked really promising. Maybe even 5 skips good.

"Is that...? Oh my gawd!"

Leo's head whipped around first to the speaker and then to where she looked over her sunglasses and pointed.

"Rick, is that a dead body?"
"Go see."
"Dude!"

Leo turned the rock in his hand as he surveyed the mound of flesh. It moved and he and the three people nearby all jumped.

"It's alive!"

Leo joined the small group in running toward the man, and it was totes a man. He was naked as a jay bird. The woman hung back, already pulling out her phone to make a 911 call and the two guys were calling to each other as much as to the poor washed up hobo man. Leo, for his part, was digging in his bag for the extra shirt he had packed. It was Leo-sized which would no doubt be tight, but anything was better than nothing in this cold.

> “Sir, can you tell me your name? Are you okay?”

He was not in any condition to be talking, obvs. Leo handed off the shirt and froze when actual coherent words came out of his mouth.

>”My name is Jorge…Cervantes…”

Jorge Cervantes rang a bell in Leo's mind big time. He grabbed his phone and went straight to the forums.

"What are you doing, man?"

"I know this guy. He's a hero, dude." Leo turned his phone around to show the two men who were shimmying his shirt onto Jorge the water-mancer in a birdwatcher's action shot. He was all water-bending style and guns and stuff. "He's with the police or the X's or something in between. I dunno. But I bet the mutant school uptown will want to know."

This was the Jorge Ms. Taylor had lamented about. It had to be. That was why it'd rung a bell. Sheesh. Mama T was gonna pee herself. And maybe she'd finally lay off him for finding her old, nude-y boyfriend.

Leo brought his phone up and snapped a quick photo. Uh. He then deleted that photo, re-framed so that Mister Hero Cervantes' junk wasn't in the shot and sent it via text to a certain concerned Amazonian Adapted.

"Can you stand?"
"We gotta get him off the beach, man. It's too cold."
"Don't suppose you have pants in there."

Seriously. Being naked in public was like some kind of rite of passage for a mutant and probably the number 3 reason Leo was actually okay with being just a normal guy. Leo checked for pants and had to shrug.

"Naw. It was lucky I even had the shirt. But here, He can have my jacket. And my scarf. I'm serious. I know people who're looking for this guy. Maybe we can tie it or... something." Unfortunately, a jacket was not pants.

"Ambulance is on the way." The woman reported from behind her sun glasses. She was looking, though. Dark lenses or not, she was so looking. Leo wasn't the only one who saw her purse her lips.

"It's cold, Debra. Give the guy a break!"

Everything hurt. Everything cast a net of confusion over his already hazy mind. The connections were misfiring. The sights and sounds burned into his eyes and ears. Jorge actually growled a little, shielding his eyes from the sensations all around him. How long had it actually been since he had felt and seen and heard like a normal person was supposed to? How long? He tried to organize his thoughts in a vain attempt to remember something from his experience, but the only thing that would come to mind was the remembrance of churning waves and seafoam. The very idea was startling enough to keep Jorge from focusing on those thoughts for too long.

Jorge winced, turning away from people who were starting to clamor closing. The fog was lifting from his mind, slowly, but he was still pretty sensitive to sound and touch. Finally someone asked him the million dollar question and he responded. Clearly and without pause, he responded with his name.

It was good that he was able to know his name. Considering the jumble that his thoughts and memories were at the moment, actually recalling something personal and that clearly did mean a lot. It meant that he wasn’t a totally basket case. However, he had a feeling that everything else was going to take time and patience; some of those he didn’t quite have in abundance.

Hey. At least he remembered that too. Go him.

Then, he was accosted with clothing.

Jorge felt the fabric as soon as it touched his skin and it felt coarse and painful. It practically burned as it was pulled down over his head and across his chest and back. After his experience, being solid like this was actually turning out to be one of the most painful experiences. He didn’t know how long it was going to last, the question wasn’t even on his mind. All that mattered to him right now was to stop being in pain so that he could just breathe for a second.

”Ow, ow, ow,” he winced.

The shirt was so tight. The design on it was ridiculous. Way to add insult to injury. The sound of a picture being snapped echoed in his ear but he didn’t turn to see. Instead, he sat there, trying to stand as someone else finally came up and offered a jacket and a scarf to at least offer the man some modesty. Another person announced that an ambulance was on the way and Jorge involuntarily shook. His legs were weak, having not supposed solid weight in such a long time.

”God, it hurts…” he hissed.

Then, as if his body itself deemed his ability to stand nulled, Jorge shins and one knee partially dissolved, liquefying into pure water. Jorge panicked, his breath caught in his sore throat as he fell onto his side. Water dripped from his dissolving knees, but, pushing past the panic, he growled and dug his fingers into the sand. Eyes shut tight, he shook as he put everything he had into his focus. A glare of white teeth, a snarl of defiance, and the water reformed from his knees down and again were solid flesh.

Jorge flopped onto his back, exhausted and breathing heavily. In the midst of his haziness, he whispered to the nearest person, a young man, the one who had provided the shirt and jacket.

”K-Keep me…away…from the water…” His head flopped back down and Jorge once again started to drift into darkness.

Gemma's phone made a screeching noise that almost made the guidance counselor jump out of her chair. It told her two things: One, that she got a text, and two, that one of the Mansion kids had been meddling with her phone again. Or possibly the Headmaster. She would not have put it past him.
Gemma reached for her coffee, sipped, and made a face. She had been so immersed in her work that she had let the drink go cold. She had been reading up on news articles, blogs, and other online sources, scanning for anything and everything that the Mansion might need to know about. And by the 'Mansion' she meant responsible adults: Herself. By process of elimination.

She stood and started a new batch of coffee before she realized she had not checked the text. Rubbing the bridge of her nose she picked up the phone and turned it on.

Leo.
...
...Leo?...

Gemma's dark eyes widened as she saw the photo in the message. She tried to enlarge the image, fumbled, dropped the phone, picked it up, and tried again. This time it worked, and the picture let her slowly sinking to the floor beside her desk.

There was no mistaking the man in the photo.
But... how?...
Why?

Gemma fumbled as she typed out a text to Leo.

Where did you get this picture?...

Away from the water was easier said than done. The guy was on his feet, yeah, but his legs were not exactly always legs. Sometimes they were like water? So then he wasn't always on his feet either.

"Can we carry him?"
"I mean, he stood up, yeah? So it can't be a spinal injury or whatever."
"There's a good samaritan clause," Leo reminded them, "He just asked to get away from the water."

Leo wasn't the strongest, but he did slip a shoulder under Jorge's arm. His phone buzzed in his hand and the teen unlocked the screen without even looking.

Where'd he get the photo?

"Smile, dude." Leo snapped another photo, this one a selfie with Leo and Jorge together, neither looking terribly great, but there wasn't time to re-take. Jorge was freezing Leo out. His skin was like freaking ice. The photo was sent off without further explanation. He didn't have enough hands to manage the hero and the phone so the hardware went into his pocket.

"Hey, I hope you don't mind, but I messaged Ms. Gemma Taylor. You guys were a thing, right?" He had seen plenty of photos of them together from the forums, anyway. Oh no. What if they were like exes? Like bad blood exes?

Well, with how bad Jorge looked, not even the rigid counselor would be mean to the guy.

With the other good samaritan on Jorge's other side, they managed to get Jorge up toward the road which helped when the ambulance arrived. He had to insist he was Jorge's son, which could have been a harder stretch, but Leo had to know where they were going and he texted Ms. Taylor again once he was sure where they were going.

Hey! Finally, he was back to doing something actually good!

He felt them as they wrapped his arms over their shoulders and hefted him up. They started to pull him away from the ocean shore and, already, he could feel the urge of the water pulling away from him. He started to feel more and more I control, but it was still going to be a long road. As much as he wanted to believe that he was going to be okay, there was still so much rolling through his mind that he was having some difficulty concentrating. The water still called to him, but it wasn’t as loud as it was before. Instead, this time, it was like a dull lapping wave as opposed to a crashing one against the rocks of his mind. Distance was good, but for how long, he didn’t know. He just hoped that he could get some control out of all this.

He ground his teeth upon feeling their skin against his. It was still strange to feel this solid after however long he had been lost in the ocean. It was strange that he still didn’t know what day or even year it was. Could he really have been lost for years?

Memories started to flood back. He remembered the mansion, the MRC unit, but, most of all, he remembered Gemma. Gemma, the woman that he was supposed to marry. He had proposed to her not long before all this happened. God, what could she be thinking? Was she okay? He needed to get a hold of her, but first, he needed to get ahold of himself. Clearly he wasn’t going to see her like th—

Water everywhere. Churning waves. Crashing on shores. A gunshot.

”Argh,” he winced, hearing a sharp, thundering sound like a gunshot in his mind. However, he regained himself enough to look up and see a kid telling him to “smile”. He paid him no heed, only trying to focus on keeping himself together, both mentally and physically – literally.

The sound of roaring water filled his ears again, but Jorge pushed it off, focusing his body and clenching and unclenched in his hand in some vain attempt to remember what it was to be solid. This was far more difficult than he could have imagined but he had to keep trying. Closing his hand into a tight fist, he tried to keep his focus on the rough skin, the hair on his arms, and the ridiculous, tight shirt he wore over his abdomen. Focus and peace, that is what his mind needed.

>> ”Hey, I hope you don’t mind, but I messaged Ms. Gemma Taylor. You guys were a thing, right?”

That got his attention. He looked up to the kid, eyes searching his face, almost as if trying to determine whether or not this was some cruel kind of prank. This kid knew Gemma? What were the odds of that? He gulped, staring at him, even as the sound of sirens pulled up closer and closer. Sleep wanted to overtake him but he managed to fend it off, knowing that unconsciousness was probably going to knock him straight back into his more liquid form.

”You know…Gemma?” he inquired. ”How do you kno—“ He wavered. He started to fall to the side but Jorge shot out his arm to keep him braced and upward. Eyes closed, he ground his teeth as the ambulance pulled up. He nodded to the kid. “Call her, kid. Please.”. Exhausted, he feel deeper to his side, but that was just when the ambulance showed up. Everything was a blur as they started to work on him, asking him questions, as well as asking people who were present. Before he knew it, he was being placed onto a gurney and they were arguing with the kid who had been by his side, who knew Gemma. He caught snippets of a story of him being his son, so Jorge went with it. ”My son,” he said as he pointed to him. ”My son…can come alon—ARGH!!!”

There was another shockwave that flew through him. He ground his teeth as he pushed himself against the gurney, feeling his left side turning into water before their very eyes. The water dribbled off the side of the gurney, but Jorge tightened his jaw and forced himself to reform, the water returning back into place and solidify into bone and flesh. It was taking too much concentration, concentration he didn't know how much he had left. He needed Gemma.

It was a full eternity before the cellphone screeched again. Gemma had considered all possible options; most of them involved Leo playing a prank on her that was more cruel than the boy could have possibly imagined. Jorge went missing three years ago... everyone had given him up for dead, whether they admitted it around her or not. Life went on. In a way.

Gemma was jolted out of her dark thoughts by the long expected sound of a text message. She turned the phone on just to see another image - no text - from Leo.

This one had two faces on it, and told a whole story in itself.

A choked little sob escaped Gemma before she slammed one hand over her mouth. Jorge was alive. He looked... worn, in the picture, but there was no mistaking him (or Leo's grinning face).

Gemma reached up, pulling herself to a standing position by the edge of the desk. She took a couple of deep breaths, calming herself down, trying to keep from dissolving into tears. There were so many things she still didn't know. This could all still be a very cruel joke.

Just as she lifted the phone again to call Leo, another text message pinged in - this one with a hospital name. Gemma was out the door the next moment, storming blindly down the hallway towards the front door. The rational part of her brain was telling her this was much more important than just her, someone else needed to know about it too...

She rounded the corner in the foyer, and found just the person she'd been looking for.

"We have an emergency" she stated, storming by "Headmaster K..."

The Headmaster's eyes went round as he saw her, and he backed a step away before slumping down along the wall in an overly dramatic fashion.

"Alas..."

"NOT NOW"

Poof.

Clone.

"THIS IS SERIOUS!" Gemma snapped at another copy of the Headmaster, scurrying through the front door and then immediately trying to back out again to get away from her "You need to let Sam kn..."

"Nonononono BEGONE, WOMAN!..."

"Headmaster, for Heaven's s..."

Poof.

Gemma swore loudly, banging the front door closed. She could only deal with one crisis at a time, and Headmasters dropping dead like flies was not on top of her priority list.

***

A dangerously short amount of time later Gemma rushed into the waiting hall of the ER, looking around to find Leo. Or Jorge. Or anyone who could tell her anything.

Call her? Like call her, call her?

"Dude..." Leo glanced at the EMTs who were loading Jorge onto a gurnee. "Uh, dad," he amended, "Ms. Taylor's the councelor at my- uh- our? school?" Maybe he heard that. Maybe he didn't. He was sorta busy getting loaded onto the ambulance.

"Is he experiencing memory loss?" The EMT who was offering Leo a hand up into the back of the vehicle was asking, all earnest face and calculating eyes.

"No. I mean, it's hard to tell. He's all discombobulated and he's like sometimes partly water." Leo took the hand up, chewing his bottom lip as he watched the flurry of activity. There were vitals to be had and IV's to be placed.

"So he's a mutant."
"Dangerous?" The second tech asked. To their credit, neither one stopped working for evena second.

Leo shook his head, realized no one was looking at him and answered out loud. "No. He shouldn't be. He's a cop. I mean. He was." Leo pulled out his phone again to double check, but... no. Instead he squeezed in close and put his hand on Jorge's shoulder, well out of the way.

"It's gonna be okay, dad." The hesitation was almost imperceptible at this point. "I sent Ms. Taylor a message. I'll call her when we get there." Until then, Leo simply held on to avoid sliding around when they took crazy tight turns and tried to absorb every word that came out of the tech's mouths. He was gonna have a lot of Googling to do once they stopped.

***

So, claiming to be his son was maybe not as smart an idea as he'd hoped. They didn't want to let him in when they got Jorge into a curtained partition. They also made his clothing donation so much scrap. They also dropped 3 clipboards into his arms, each with nearly 20 pages of medical and mutant history to fill out. Some were front and back.

"Man, my Tia gave me that coat." He whined as he was pushed back some paces and then ushered to a waiting area. He started to look at the papers, but he had no clue if Jorge's father had colon cancer. Heck. He didn't even know the guy's middle initial.

"Screw this."

He pulled out his phone and was in the process of lifting it to his ear when he saw the Amazonian Counselor bust in. He waved, but she didn't see him at first. Not that he blamed her since he was buried under clipboards. He hung up, set the paperwork aside and waved until she noticed.

"Hey, Ms. Taylor? Do you know Mr. Cervantes' medical history?" He had Google-fu and barring that, a friend with scary hacking abilities. Either way, they'd conquer this paperwork.

Once played into the back of the ambulance, Jorge was whisked away into the blissful arena of unconsciousness. His mind went dark as the drugs quickly entered his bloodstream, carried throughout his entire body and dull the senses so that he could finally rest and let his body naturally heal. The EMTs didn’t know that Jorge was so panic-stricken about losing consciousness because he feared relapsing into his liquid state, but it was in the blackness of his mind that he found solace, and allowed his body maintain its solid form. The man couldn’t stay unconscious forever but, in this moment, it was a bliss that he greatly required.

In the darkness, his mind started to turn back the clock, slipping through time where he drifted like flotsam, becoming one with that element that he used on a near daily basis. It was a process that he never could have achieved in his waking sensitivity, but required the darkness access and the lucidness of dreams to recreate. Though he wouldn’t remember everything upon awakening, his mind would recall enough to at least get the process rolling. That was all that mattered.

The ambulance shook. He felt a hand on his shoulder. Jorge remained unmoving and unresponsive as the EMTs worked to gather his stats and figure out exactly what was happening to him. Jorge knew, but he couldn’t actually say anything at this point, could he?

The memories flipped like a rolodex, moving further and further back until, finally, the scenes began to play out in his head –

***

Four months of deep undercover. That was murder for cops. It wasn’t so much the bodies that it left behind, but it was the friendships and relationships that it managed to ruin. People couldn’t cope with cops who just were forced to cut off all ties with and were deprived of all news for months at a time. It was a terrible thing to put anyone through, but Jorge believed that he and Gemma would be okay. He knew they would be okay considering the lives that they had. In the end, he knew that at the end, he would return home and into her open arms again.

But that wasn’t the case.

Four months of deep undercover in a mutant trafficking case, one that had the FBI involved. They needed someone on the inside, someone who could get close to the major players in this terrible game. Jorge, with his background and accolades, was immediately suggested. It was an honor, something that would take him a step closer to Captain status, but, most importantly, it would allow him to help those poor victims that they didn’t get to meet until it was far too late. Morally, he had to do it.

After a long time with Gemma, and many assurances, he agreed. They would postpone the wedding until after the case was done.

Four months. He saw the worst of humanity in that time. He witnessed true depravity and, through it all, there was absolutely nothing that he could do. He was so far away from help that, even if he wanted to, it would have meant immediate death. So, with a heavy heart and eyes closed, Jorge continued to work, continued to gather intel, and got steps closer to finding out who the monster was that was running this gig, the real boss behind all the smaller fish. The worst happened then – he was found out.

Unknown to him, back in the MRC, a mole had gotten in and released the information about a certain police officer in the trafficker’s ranks. It was a bloody month that followed. Jorge was capture, he was beaten, he was tortured, but he revealing nothing about what he knew or who his contacts were. In the end, it was to be a burial at seat. Bloodied and bruised, Jorge was dragged onto the deck as his execution flashed him a grin that made his gold tooth gleam. Was this really the last sight he witnessed? He closed his eyes and thought of something better, something he would rather have on his mind in death than not: Gemma.

BLAM!

The gun fired. It echoed in his ears louder than the sound of the bullet as it penetrated his sternum, tore through bone, and pierced many arteries before finally embedding itself into his lung. Jorge felt none of it. Just a sharp piercing and warmth from his inside staining his crusted over shirt and jeans. Legs failing, he tumbled over the railing of the ship and down into the harsh, churning waters below. Fitting that he would be given a watery grave.

As his body chilled and his last breaths came. The last he saw before the blackness came was bubbles, his last, escaping from all around. But it was in that moment as he bobbed along the surface, staining the water red, that his mind suddenly panicked at the sensation of death breathing on the back of his neck. There was one chance, one last ditch effort, if only he could summon the strength for it. It was risky, it was stupid, it was a chance he never would have taken in a million years – so he did it.

He felt his body dissolve. Flesh and bone liquefied and turned to water, quickly mixing with the salt ocean and spreading far and wide along with the currents. He had hoped that he could reform himself, heal his wounds by doing this, but the currents were too strong. He drifted. Each and every droplet of Jorge Cervantes was spread amongst the waves, moving further and further away, until all that was left was nothing but a confused and scattered mind – a scattered mind that would take three years to fully reform.

***

Jorge lay still. The EMTs got him to the hospital in record time. The second they found out he was a cop, they moved their asses, burning through the streets at a near limitless speed until they reached the hospital. The unconscious, tired looking man was wheeled through emergency, and nurses and doctors ran about on all sides trying to understand what was happening to him. It was time before they finally stabilized the man and situated him in intensive care.

Jorge would have said thank for all their hard work. He would eventually, but for now, he needed the bliss of the darkness -- and the visage only it could provide: Gemma.

There was a lot of activity going on in the ER, nurses and doctors rushing everywhere, and a large number of people waiting in line. Gemma only noticed Leo when he started waving his arms around.

>>"Hey, Ms. Taylor? Do you know Mr. Cervantes' medical history?"

"Leo!"

Gemma wove her way through the crowd to Leo. For an emotional moment, she was ready to hug him, but his question distracted her. She glanced at the pile of clipboards and paperwork, then back at Leo.

"... what happened?"

Medical history was standard procedure when someone got admitted to the hospital. And yet, turning up after three years, Gemma couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong with Jorge. She looked at the clipboards again, and saw they had extra sheets for mutants. Well, at least they knew that much.

"Is he all right?..."

> "... what happened?"

"I dunno." Leo shrugged in true teen fashion and folded his bare arms to ward off the cool air Ms. Taylor had tracked in with her. "I mean, we were on the beach and then he was on the beach. Some good Samaritans thought he was dead, but then he wasn't." He shrugged his bony shoulders again. That was a serious summation of events thus far.

"I recognized his face, Ms. T. He fought those Christmas Trees when I was in 5th grade! Uh, you know?" He tried to play it cool. "The MRC were kinda like my heroes."

As one of the few, the proud, the brown, Leo'd latched onto Cervantes especially. Jorge and the MRC weren't like his heroes, they'd been his idols. When he was a kid he used to pretend his action figures were MRC officers. Now he was attempting to fill out medical history for one. But, you know, in a totally cool kind of way.

> "Is he all right?..."

"He didn't look... I mean, no blood or anything." More shrugging. Shrugging was the answer to all. Shrug life. "He was kinda weird. Like his talking? But, I mean, I bet if we go talk to them, they'd let you in." There'd been more than enough pictures of Gemma Taylor and Jorge Cervantes floating around the internet for Leo (and the internet) to know the two were connected. He was definitely not going to mention that they had a fan/flame section on AudobonX for mutant couples. And he would definitely not mention the LionOfTruth's involvement in some debates related to the matter at hand.

"Uh, c'mon. I'll see what we can do." Leo gathered up the clipboards and motioned with his head for Ms. Taylor to follow.

There were a couple fanfics he probably needed to delete too, come to think of it.

"Excuse me." Leo shoved the clipboards up onto the counter. "Is Jorge Cervantes stable enough for visitors or whatever? I don't think I can answer all this without his help and this is his lady." Leo hooked a thumb over his shoulder at Ms. Taylor.

"You're..." The secretary or nurse or whatever shuffled a couple papers until she found the file she wanted and flipped it open. "You're the son, right?"

Ah. Suddenly he regretted the 'his lady' comment. "Step mom." He simpered.

'Oh.' She mouthed the word and nodded conspiratorially. "Room 302. Fill in these visitor badges real quick and sign here."

Leo wrote LEO CERVANTES on his with more than a little glee and did the same with MRS CERVANTES for Ms. Taylor. There. That should do it. He signed the sheet with an unintelligible squiggle. It wasn't a lie if no one could read it.

He did look a little sheepish in including Ms. Taylor in the lie, however. "They told me only family were allowed in the ambulance." Leo handed over the nametag with a juggle of the clipboards.

"What was the room number again?"

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.

There was a steady rhythm in the room. The heart monitor ticked on consistently, never once faltering as it pinged with the sounds of the strong heart that it was connected to. The room was silent save for that single sound, though, under it, if once listened closely, they could hear the sounds of a steady, yet somewhat ragged breathing. Though his heart was strong, it was clear that he suffered a great deal and his physical body was having trouble maintaining equilibrium. Overall, the man in the pale-blue hospital gown, stretched out on the white sheets of his bed, was a complete and utter mess.

He had definitely seen better days. The stubble was thick across his strong jaw, and his normally caramel hued skin was sickly and pale. Deep shadows circled the bags under his eyes, and his normally strong frame was far leaner than it should have been. At a glance one would assume the man had been malnourished, shipwrecked on some island, oh but if only they knew the truth.

Dispersed among the ocean for three years was a desperate move. In his wildest dreams, Jorge never once imagined that it was something he would have ever considered. But, knocking at Heaven’s door tends to allow one to make snap decisions. Aside from death, it was his only option, and it was an option he thought he could handle.

Clearly, he had been mistaken. It took those three years for the man to pull himself back together, droplet by droplet within the churning waves of the oceans. Some pieces of him had stretched far beyond his reach, never to be seen again, while others took months and months to work their way back to connecting with the rest. It was a terrible fate, to lie in so many pieces amidst the waves. Not only for the psyche, but for the physical as well. So much of his body trembled to maintain physicality, wanting nothing more than to once against disperse into a puddle of sea water. But something kept him duct-taped together. He would never know what that was but, eventually, he would take it.

But, for now, he was content with simply sleep. Though, something had begun to stir him. Already he was beginning to move in his sleep.

***

Silent footfalls filled the room. Loafers tip-toed in, followed by the thin, lanky frame of a younger woman with blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail. The young woman, skiddish and mousey appearing with her thick, black-framed glasses, carefully moved into the room and started to inspect the equipment. The rainbow colored scrubs she wore signified that she was one of the many nurses on this floor. However, despite that, she did seem to be taking careful attention to peer at the older man in the hospital bed.

Casually she nibbled on her pink lips as she moved to the head of the bed. Thin, bony hands reached down to pluck up the chart where she read the name: “Jorge Cervantes”. She sighed, covering her mouth silently as she looked him over.

“Oh my god,” she started. “It is you, Detective Cervantes.”

Her name was Peggy Marshall. Several years bad, when she was just starting med school, her parents had disappeared from their home. It eventually reached the papers that they had been killed, their bodies found, one charred to a blackened skeleton and the other frozen to the point of shattering. They had been killed by a notorious serial killer by the name of Metatron, a self-proclaimed savior of mankind’s souls. It was because of Detective Cervantes that her parents’ killer had been brought to justice. And to see him like this, well, it was just terrible.

She sighed as she placed the clipboard back and turned to leave now that her duties were done checking the room. It was then that she heard a low groan coming from the bed. Head snapping back, she moved over to him, peering closely at his face.

“D-Detective Cervantes?” she said softly. “Detective? My name is Peggy. I’m your nurse. You’re in the hospital.” She tried explaining the situation, but the man was still pretty out of it so she straightened up to get a doctor. However, just as she did so, she turned to see two more individuals walking in, one, a very tall, dark-skinned woman, and the other, a young name with nearly the same brown skin as the detective himself. His family? “I’m sorry, but can I help you?” she asked them. “Are you related? This man is in very serious condition and we can’t have people getting in the way.”

>>"I dunno. I mean, we were on the beach and then he was on the beach. Some good Samaritans thought he was dead, but then he wasn't. I recognized his face, Ms. T. He fought those Christmas Trees when I was in 5th grade! Uh, you know? he MRC were kinda like my heroes."

It was a coincidence of epic proportions. That Leo would be around, and recognize Jorge, and know her number, and even think of texting her, knowing that they were...
... she'd have to check on that later...
... but still, Gemma was reeling from the sheer fact that she ended up finding out at all.

"Thank you." she said, and there was a lot of sincerity in those two words. She was more than a little touched that one of the Brat Brigade would concern themselves with her personal affairs, and not even make fun of her in the process. She smiled at Leo, although the smile was shaky, she was too distracted to give it a serious effort.

>>"He didn't look... I mean, no blood or anything. He was kinda weird. Like his talking? But, I mean, I bet if we go talk to them, they'd let you in. Uh, c'mon. I'll see what we can do."

Leo took charge, and Gemma followed him without argument. Somewhere deep down she knew they would not let them into the ER without a good reason, and Leo was probably a lot more adept at deceiving people. No offense intended.

"You're... You're the son, right?"

"Step mom."

Right. Gemma glanced at the name tag that said MRS. CERVANTES, and pushed down the rush of thoughts and feelings concerning... everything the tag implied. She followed Leo who was still juggling the clipboards, and found the room fast enough. As they walked in, a blonde nurse turned to them.

>>“I’m sorry, but can I help you? Are you related? This man is in very serious condition and we can’t have people getting in the way.”

"Wife" Gemma muttered, distracted by the sight of Jorge "I cancel out mutant powers. If his powers get out of control I need to be nearby."

If he still had powers. If he was still in control at all.

Gemma stood by the bed, biting back tears as she looked at Jorge. He looked... worn, tired, probably sick. Wherever he had been for the past three years, it was not a kind place. Was he held captive? Tortured?... Those kinds of things happened to undercover cops that got caught. And worse. She had no idea if he would even be himself if he woke up. Or if he would even remember anything.

She slipped her hand into Jorge's, covering his with both of her own. She just had to... make sure he was real.

"Can you tell what happened to him?..."

He'd been struggling to fill out Jorge's need-to-know section on his Known Mutant form, but Leo'd never imagined what a brilliant move it'd been to call in Ms. T.

Yeah, the lady was in a helluvalot of pictures with Jorge, but he'd never stopped to think about why. Well, he hadn't stopped to think "why" beyond the romance angle, anyway. Ms. Taylor was the pro-mutant anti-power lady. As long a she was around, they didn't need that entire mutant power clipboard! Being human, Leo'd totally forgotten.

And beyond all that, Ms. T's power brought a little relief to the question that had been buzzing around in his head since he'd heard Jorge utter the words "Keep me away from the water."

Why would a watermancer want to get away from the water?

Didn't matter now, though. No water. No power.

The nurse huffed and moved aside for Ms. T. She didn't seem to notice that she was an inconvenience. She was all teary eyed and lovesick and junk.

Leo cleared his throat and touched the busy nurse's elbow. "Ehm. So, as you can probably tell, Mrs. Cervantes cancels powers so she'll likely need to stay close at hand, but I was wondering..." Leo guided the nurse gently as he chattered and she nodded her engagement and answered his questions about the forms. He really did need help. And Ms. T probably really needed to be alone with her guy, even if it was just for the span of a couple minutes.

The brat spared a glance for Ms. T at the door. Hopefully... well, hopefully it was a good thing. That he was back.

"So, this section about endangerment-" He let the door fall shut behind him.

Peggy didn’t know why but there did be seem to be some sort of protectiveness she was experiencing in regards to this man. Though she had never met Detective Cervantes before, she did know his name and was grateful for everything that he had done in the case involving Metatron. She had no real emotional attachment too him, but she was natural protective of her patients and, in this case, it was well justified considering the detective’s current condition. So when the two walked into the room, she immediately turned into her usual nurse persona, being both firm, yet soft spoken as they approached.

Her first instinct was that these two could be the detective’s family, but she couldn’t take a chance at guessing that. Once they confirmed, then she could loosen the reins a little; but still, they would have to make sure to be out of the doctor’s ways when she returned. Dr. Clemens was having a hell of a time getting any proper readings on the man as if seemed that his body was in some kind of constant flux. At least one moment she watched as the doctor tried to insert an IV, only to have the man’s arm go transparent and liquid. It’s hard to cure someone whose body was on high alert to protect.

>> ”Wife.”

Peggy breathed a sigh of relief and nodded that it was okay for the two of them to enter. It was good to see that the man had a family. Too many police officers came through these doors with no visitors except for partners or begrudged family. These two seemed nice.

“Then by all means,” she said with a nod. “But do make sure that when the doctor enters that you—“

>> ”I cancel out mutant powers. If his powers get out of control, I need to be nearby.”

There was another breath, this one in utter relief. If this woman did do as she claimed, then she could certainly be of assistance. She would have to tell the doctor as soon as she came back.

>>”Can you tell what happened to him?”

A twinkle of sadness tinged the corners of the nurses’ eyes. She had seen such a scene many time before: a lovely family member sitting at a patient’s bedside. Normally such questions were asked when the individual had been gone for a long time, usually fallen to the allure of drugs or alcohol, sometimes it was simply because they lived on the other side of the country. Whatever the case, seeing that caring always touched the young blonde. It was one of the few reminders that there were still good things in the world.

“Um, the doctor isn’t one-hundred percent sure,” she started. “He’s suffered some sort of trauma but we can’t find it. What can be determined is that he is malnourished. Any other tests, we can’t do,” she said as she looked over the man in the bed. “Whenever we try to draw blood, or take readings, his body reacts by…um…transforming…like, into water. We were able to give him a relaxant so he can sleep. That seems to keep him solid so we could at least put the dressing gown on him, but, other than that, it seems like when he is awake he’s struggling to hold on.” She paused a second, weighing her options, then locked eyes with the dark-skinned woman. “You’re name is Gemma, isn’t? The few times he’s been lucid, he calls for a ‘Gemma’.”

The boy approached her, touching her elbow to get her attention. Peggy turned her eyes to him and saw that impish smile on his face. Uh-oh. He started to guide her away, trying to quell her questioning look by turning her attention to the clipboards in his hand. He reassured her that the woman’s abilities could handle the detective, and proceeded to guide her away. She wasn’t stupid, she knew that he was just trying to buy alone time for his folks so, she went along.

“Ugh, let me see check…” she said as she took the clipboard from him and started to pour over the boxes of blank information. Once they were outside, he started to ask her about the forms and the nursed sighed, letting the door close behind them. They deserved the moment.

***

It was like swimming in the middle of the ocean in the dark of night. That is what it is like to be in a forced coma. In the blackness of his mind, Jorge felt like he was drifting along the waves, bobbing up and down in silent waters, staring upward and singling out distance, quiet lights. There was something peaceful about it, tranquil, a chance for him to finally breathe. But, for as good as he felt, Jorge also knew that he wasn’t stupid. This wasn’t some dream or fantasy, his body was in pain and he was probably shut down in order to heal.

Sigh. He hated being a bother. He especially didn’t like the way he had gone on when he first managed to reconstruct himself on that beach. That was embarrassing. Now that enough time had passed, he was starting to gain back a number of his mental facilities. His humor, his caring, everything that made Jorge, well, Jorge, was coming back slowly but surely. But was he ready to face the pain that would surely await him upon awakening? Most people would say no, but there was one person he was willing to brave the pain of consciousness for. If only she were here.

>> ”…what happened to him?”

The voice was distant and little more than whisper, and yet still, it was enough to gain Jorge’s attention. He swam through the murky darkness, following the voice until he spotted a twinkle of light at the far end of this endless chasm of blackness. The voice was louder and soon joined my others. The swim continued. He pushed himself forward, closer and closer to that distant light that soon opened into a slit through the inky dark. Blinded, but determined, he continued forward, feeling the waters around him dry up and forcing himself to use his lethargic limbs to practically crawl forward until he was cast into the enveloping light…

***

There was a subtle, yet deep intake of breath. For the first time since he had woken up on that beach, Jorge actually felt…solid. He felt like he didn’t have to struggle to keep himself glued together and covered in duct tape. Yes, for the first time in three years, Jorge Cervantes actually felt like the man he was. Though, certain touch still hurt him. After spending such a long time in a liquefied state, he was going to have to get used to the sensation of touch again. But a glance down at the dark hand that was slipped into his, and he knew he was willing to suffer through any discomfort.

Gemma was turned away, looking saddened and relieved at the same time. She hadn’t met his gaze yet. Jorge took a moment to center himself before he squeezed the hand in his and spoke in a raspy, unrefined voice.

”I…know that…face” he said with a wispy breath. The corners of his lips curled into a small, familiar smile.