He felt her coming before he saw or heard her. He'd gotten used to the feeling of just shoes, or an arm or shoulder approaching suddenly. Damn. He hadn't been able to get the fire started in time. He sat back in quiet frustration before sliding over and getting started splitting the wood into smaller pieces with a careful application of his crowbar and stored energy.

He looked to the rodent she'd brought, and then to his scorpion. Well, at least they weren't going hungry today, not that this place seemed at all lacking in things to eat. Most of them wanted to eat them, actually. He nodded a bit as she got the fire going, and turned to grab the big rat from next to her. He patted his pockets and then sighed, remembering he'd loaned her his fold out.

His dirty hand reached out for the knife. He knew she didn't like cutting them up. He didn't mind. Elke had shown him how during their hunting trips.

After they got all of that set up and running, he sat against the wall of their dwelling, looking down for a moment, and speaking. Gosh, it sounded odd to talk after pretty much a week of silence. "Eh... Still no sign of who ever put us here... Took a look to the... eh... East. Went as far out as the beach... Nothin..."

That's all they knew at this point. This place was geographically similar to Ney york... At least in the sense that they seemed to be on the east coast of a large continent... It didn't tell them much other than that, though. Had they really... time traveled? What sort of mutant could do that? Were they in an alternate reality? What in the world was going on? And why?

Why, after everything, did things always have to find a way to get worse?

She sheepishly handed the knife over and scuttled away to start working on the little pile of leaf, wood, and fur she was fashioning into better clothing for both of them. She'd spent the better part of a week in what was basically two giant leaves haphazardly sewn together, so she was looking forward to something that covered all of her arms and legs again.

He got started on his task and when he spoke it honestly spooked her. She blinked at him for a moment, before clearing her throat and looking back down to her task.

"Yeah... I went north a bit and it's just a forest for miles."

Both of them sounded awful from lack of sleep, stress, and not talking too much. Juniper fiddled with the wooden needle she had whittled and crossed her legs under her as she sat.

"Couldn't see anything from up on top of that volcano, either. No boats, no planes. No satellites. You see the stars at night? We're pretty far from any light sources if there are any. No light pollution at all."

She shrugged and settled in with her back against one large stick she'd phased into the ground for stability.

"I still think you should try throwing me up really high so I can see how far everything goes."

She stifled a yawn. Even though she'd been taking actual naps every now and then when it was her turn to sleep insomnia had reared its ugly head to torment her some more while she didn't have any crutches to lean in. The first couple of nights had been pretty rough so she'd just decided to avoid it all at costs to try and keep her troubled sleeping habits as much of a secret as she could.

She thought she had been pretty clever covering waking from a particularly bad nightmare with a jerk and an AHH by throwing in a CHOO and pretending to sneeze.... and then just never mentioning it at all.

It would be a bit strange living with him in this situation... He didn't often make eye contact, but he always knew where she was, and seemingly where other things around him were. He seemed used to getting little sleep, so his mental condition didn't seem to suffer from the strange sleeping schedule. Nothing seemed to outwardly bother him, honestly. Inconceniences were sometimes met with sighs, but he just trucked forward silently for the most part.

His fights with the creatures he hunted, or fended off were short, and brutal. He killed where she hesitated. He stubornly stuck to his original clothing even as the harsh circumstances and environment had them torn and beaten up. This was the longest conversation they'd had in... four days?

"Same with the south... I ain't ever been one for staring at skies, but I can't say I mind the view at night. I think you're right. I think we are alone here." He let the statement linger in the air for a bit as he started skewering a few pieces of meat onto a stick for roasting.

She shook his head silently at the thought of throwing her up into the air. "Too dangerous. You still don't know how much damage you could do to yourself if I throw you too high. Can't have either of us hurt." He looked down for a moment fixing the first skewer, and staking it into the ground before the ground fire.

Now was as good a time as any to talk more, right... "You... Ain't sleeping too well, eh?"

A little smile wormed its way onto her face when he agreed with her about the stars. "I've never seen it so, like, bright like this, but I've seen it similarly tons of times before. It was really easy to see everything when I was in Indiana. The forests there have a lot of clearings where you can just lay around and stargaze all night."

She huffed like the teen she was when he shot her down again, mumbling about falling from pretty high up already and being fine. whatever! She'd hold onto the idea for now and toss it back out later if she needed too. He did have a point, she guessed.

She did glance at him when he commented about her sleep, and had to remind herself that he was pretty sharp when you looked past all the stubbornness and hobo aesthetic. She tended to forget because it wasn't super important to her to watch his every move or anything. They were co-existing just fine and that was that.

"Oh, uh. Well, I don't really sleep well in normal conditions, either. Never have. Insomnia and all that jazz." She shoved her wooden sliver just a tad bit aggressively through the skin she was working on.

"...My... dad taught me a bunch of stuff about surviving like this when I was really little, and part of it was to be a light sleeper when you're out in the wild or a bear will eat your face. So, like, coupled with insomnia and stuff I really don't sleep much when I'm out in forests like this. Not even in trees. Bears are real good climbers contrary to what a lot of people believe."

She'd never forget waking up to one nibbling on her hair when she had been 16, or the fall from 20ft up when she panicked and phased out of the branch on accident. She'd taken to sleeping in her car until she got the hang of camping places overnight.

Oh, right, that reminded her of something.

"Want some mushroom?" She reached into her leaf-jumpsuit and pulled out a chunk of white, fluffy mushroom. It looked like it had come from a much much bigger plant than she'd been able to carry. She pulled off a large chunk and munched on it.

He sorta zoned out, focused on the task at hand as she responded about the stars. He still wasn't looking to start a whole bunch in the way of conversation. Honestly, he couldn't think of who in this world he might have less in common with, and while they were stuck here, there was still hope for a return home, right? Some sort of key they'd missed, some mutant out there hiding, or location past where they'd searched that had the secret to a return home.

Maybe they wouldn't have to get to know each other, or talk in detail. Then again, it was hard not to, when she was the only person to talk to here.

"Yeah... Lotta kids have that stuff goin on these days." Insomnia. The thought of it was impossible to him at this point; he slept when ever he got a chance, what with the baby. A frown made its want on to his face. He missed him... Missed Elke. He was zoning out as she spoke back to him... A grunt of acknowledgment made its way out of his mouth as he half listened. Wait, what was that? Something about bears? Shit, that was actually something interesting, wasn't it? Damn, he was going to wonder about that. Not enough to ask her to repeat it, but it would bother him a little bit.

He looked up as she offered him some mushroom. There was a pointed silence for a moment as he stared at the random fungi in her hand. "Uh..." Wait, wasn't eating random forest shrooms a dangerous thing to do? He looked over to her and blinked a few times before stating. "No thanks... Your uh... Pupils are dialated... Are you okay?"

***

Five days had passed.

There was a distant crack of thunder that rang out in a forboding manner. The only slightly cloudy sky turned dark and heavy with water laden clouds in what seemed like minutes. The wind started light, but grew heavier, and heavier, until you thought it might abate... But it picked up even more.

"JUNIPER!" Saphirus was yelling into the forest, as he tried to gather up the camp as much as he could. She'd gone foraging just a few minutes ago, but the storm was coming down fast. He cursed under his breath as he finished bundling up the cloth and hides they had repurposed for bedding, and looked up. The wind howled through the trees as the first heavy drops of rain started to fall. "JUNIPER!" He called out again. Hastily he used the repurposed shoelaces to tie the hefty bundle to his crowbar, lifting it with relative ease.

Where was she? He grimaced. If the wind picked up any more it would be rough for her... She spent most of her time doing everything she could to weigh almost nothing. That wouldn't do in gale force winds.

She just blinked wide, dilated eyes at him, and giggled like he had told the funniest joke ever.

--

Five days passed with relative ease. They had a tiny bit more comfort in their shelter and the minimal knowledge she had for how to air dry meat in situations like this came in handy for once in her life. She had awkwardly signaled that she was going out for more supplies. They needed more kindling for the fire and she needed to drag home some more of those giant leaves to make their roof a bit more rainproof. It fricken rained 80% of the time in whatever this forest was.

She, er, they had been lost in this unfamiliar wilderness for almost two weeks now. she'd been keeping track. One week and five days of no meds, no booze, no sexy times, and no other people.

She missed Blue... His grumpiness was different from Saph's grumpiness and she missed him begrudgingly teaching her how to cook. She missed Berry, and Clyde still. She'd never thought there would be a day when she wouldn't have fuzzy little warm bodies to keep her semi grounded at night.

She missed Xavier, too. Just like.. all of him? It was weird to try and wrap her head around. She missed knowing he was close by on the other side of their shared wall most of the time. She missed him texting her to remind her about homework or school in the mornings. She missed him taking pity on her when Blue was away and always having an extra plate around dinner time in case she was home.

She was sure she could handle being lost in this dumb forest, like, forever... but it still left a heavy feeling in her chest realizing all that she had and how much she missed it.

Anyway, while she was out gathering sticks and stuff into the basket she'd woven from vines, the weather took a turn for the worst. A little wind didn't bother her, but... soon it grew stronger and she phased a goo portion of herself to try and lessen the resistance on her. Maybe it was a good idea to head home now?

A loud crack of thunder boomed overhead and the first sprinkles of rain started to come down.

Yup! Time to go!

Rushing through trees and foliage alike, she tried to beeline for their shelter. The wind started to pick up even more and just about the time she started to hear Saph hollering her name the winds were whipping through the trees with such ferocity that it was threatening to lift her off the ground completely. She briefly considered unphased herself back to being whole just for the added weight alone, but with broken branches and other things whipping around her in the storm she didn't know if she wanted to take the chance of getting knocked out or killed by flying objects.

"I'm coming!" The wind drowned out her voice completely. Jesus! It was like a hurricane was approaching, even with the trees all around them!

Speaking of...

Trunks of some of the massive trees groaned as the wind pushed on them. She could hear creaking and spotted one huge tree toppling completely over off to the left- taking out a dozen more trees with it as it fell.

This was so not good!

She managed to get to the edge of the little clearing their shelter was in, happy to see it still currently standing even with the wind going like a billion miles an hour past, and, Oh! There was Saph!

"I'm-!"

The next gust that hit her fully lifted her off her feet, which made sense considering that only her feet were currently solid. She didn't scream, but a kind of choked cry of surprise popped out as she was immediately blasted about 30ft up and in the direction of the large trees on the other side of the clearing.

It was getting worse. A lot worse. This was definitely no normal storm. The wind gust blew through, and its interactions with the area around him lit up his sixth sense. He could feel it. It was monsterous. "JUNIP-" He heard her respond, and gasped in releaf. They had to get hunkered down somewhere-

He felt a massive tree give in to the unrelenting gusts and crash down to his right. "F#@$!" This was bad. This was really bad. And it was about to get worse. A strog rush of wind blew the teenager right off her feet; he could feel that they were the only solid piece of her right now. "Damnit!" The X-Man jumped into action, dropping his crowbar with the bundle and pouncing forward, a leap assisted with his gathered energy from the day.

Quickly he lashed out for her, grasping her floating foot and letting himself drop down to the ground. He kept his absorbing side outward toward the wind so they he wasn't pushed astray by it. He thanked his sometimes inconvenient power set for its helpfulness in this situation.

Her, on the other hand. "Juniper! You have to stay solid!" He would keep a hand on her until she became solid once more. It was insane, the wind was so intense now that he had to yell to be heard. "We have to find cover!" He would reach for her hand, hoping it would be solid so he could grab it... If they headed toward the mountain... maybe they could find a cave or something? An outcropping away from the trees to take cover in would be ideal.

The sound of more trees falling in the distance made him look back... just in time to see a giant tree fall on the neatly packed bundle and his crowbar.

@#$^

Well, she'd had a nice run right? Sure, it had all started off pretty wonky and the middle years had been pretty bad, but things had certainly livened up toward the end. Like, she hadn't ever really expected that she'd live past 20 anyway, so... getting blown off into the stratosphere by a huge prehistoric storm wasn't all that bad a way to go!

Still, she wasn't thrilled at the whole process of getting there. Bye, sa-

"HURK!"

Juniper came to a very sudden, unexpected stop when the X-man caught her foot. She was saved from being flung off into the winds however far the storm would take her but was left in a very awkward handfoot shake with Saphirus.

She panicked. "I can't! I'll get hurt!" He just didn't get it, did he? She didn't have stupid superpowers to protect herself from harm other than this. It was either stay phased as long as she could, or risk getting hurt and...

He was serious though. The situation was bad and she didn't know what to do.

But... right. Cover. Somewhere to hide until the storm blew over.

"That cave on the west side!" They had both found it on separate excursions. She eyed his hand for a moment that felt way too long given the conditions and then reached out for it. Maybe, just this once, she could trust him?

A whole nother' @#$%ing tree toppled over super close to them and crushed the bundle of stuff he had dropped.

@$%^ THAT! Her hand phased through his, her foot phased out of his grip, and she quickly and firmly lodged herself onto his back in a flail of panicked movement. There was absolutely no way she felt at all comfortable enough solidifying everything on her so that a flying branch could impale her a second later. Nope. Nuh-uh.

She also wasn't about to just let him go and die on her, either. She extended her power onto him, phasing everything but his feet and hands.

This was all going south very quickly. His reach for her hand found nothing but air, and he cursed as she yelled back at him. Damnit, how would they get to safety if she kept getting blown off into the wind? And now their stuff was crushed as well.

#@$%. The were going to die here. Before he could really process what was happening, she scrambled onto him, and he suddenly felt the strangest feeling...

He wasn't there. His sixth sense struggled to make sense of it as it suddenly dipped into somewhere else with her. And she was... inside of him... This was disturbing on a deep level. Also, he suddenly weighed almost nothing in the middle of a giant wind storm.

Together, as one, they were swept up rapidly into the sky as a massive gust blew through. It was insane how fast they went from ground level to hundreds of feet in the air. "FFFFUUUUUU-" They were airborn. The approaching darkness was clear, a roiling cluster of dense clouds in the distance... It wasn't even over them yet. It was this dense, and it wasn't even over them. The Hurricane roared to life before them as the breeze they were on abated, leaving them lingering in the sky, hundreds of feet from the ground.

"DAMNIT, JUNIPER! WARN ME OR SOMETHING!" He looked around, quickly trying to take stock of the situtation... The mountain was behind them. Could he navigate this? "OKAY, OKAY! WE CANE MAKE IT! HANG ON!" His vision tunneled as he started applying his mutation to their fall, steering them toward the looming volcano. She'd mentioned the cave... maybe it would be safe.

There was a seriese of curses as they started to go the right way, but stiff breezes threw them off, and he had to correct several times, but some time later they landed at the mouth of the cave.
"IS IT SAFE?!" He called out to her as he landed, stumbling toward the mouth of the cave.

"I PANICKED, I'M SORRY!"

Well, she got her wish to be up in the clouds, basically. He set about figuring out how to get them back down and to safety and she was more than willing to let him to that. She hunkered into her perch on his back, eyes lingering on the massive, swirling storm in the distance. She'd only ever seen things like that on tv. All the states she had ever visited who happened to have storms like that paled in comparison. It was truly massive.

She limited how much she messed with his physical form on the way down, removing a bit here and there in an attempt to help him, er, steer them? She wasn't sure what he was doing, but when a gust tried to blow them back off course she'd drop the weight back into his legs to help a bit and then vanish it again a moment later. She, eh... apologize later when they were safe and not dead.

Once his feet were on the ground she gave him back his body fully, slid off, and immediately made a break for the cave before the entrance to the cave before another wind could try and scoop her up.

"SAFE!"

The cave was dark and mostly empty. There was a very large, slumbering bear-thing toward the back surrounded by piles of bones and leaves.

Once that was taken care of all that was left was to settle in and try to get a fire going. The cave was pretty deeply set into the side of the mountain, which meant the roaring winds outside didn't quite reach in.

Ten minutes later she was hunkered down across the cave with a decent sized fire going in the middle. The orange light and shadows cast by the mystery bones currently burning away made the whole place pretty eerie, especially with the moaning wind outside. Juniper frowned down at her sacrificed phone in her hands in silence. She'd used a sharp piece of bone to puncture the battery pack and catch some of the leaves and sticks from the bear's nest on fire. The last relief of life before dinosaur times gone, just like that. All she had left was Clyde's cat toy in her other hand.

She apologised. He was over it. Literally, hundreds of feet over it.

When they landed in the cave, he stumbled a bit, his vision and senses flooding back to him in time for him to feel the tempest outside and the giant animal inside. "NOT SAFE!" He roared as he dove in and ended the beast with one honestly unfairly overpowered punch. After painting the wall with the beasts head he turned to see her already working on a fire.

In here, it was still loud, but he didn't haeve to yell. "Was that... a @#$%kin sloth?" A giant sloth. Weren't they supposed to be cute or something? Damn thing looked like it ate dinosaurs for breakfast... oh, it did.

She started a fire with old dino food bones. "That's about as macabre as it gets, eh?"

He sighed and sat against the wall, taking his breath and brushing water from his face and hair. "That storm... It's massive... Might be in here a couple days. Water won't be a problem." It was overwhelming, but they really didn't have time to rest. He started trying to skin the danger sloth.

As he did, he looked back... she'd broken her phone to get a fire started. He'd lost his in the bundle... He'd only been powering it on to look at the pictures on it every few days... A frown passed over his face. He got back to work.

After a while they had meat cooking, and a hide beginning to cure.

He sat across from her, trying to ignore the blood on his hands, and that illuminated behind her on the wall of the cave. "... Did you look around... while we were up there?" He hadn't wanted to think about it... But he had. He always did that... caught details during stressful situations. It had been engrained on him living on the streets, and all these years fighting crime. He was an investigator at heart.

There was nothing out there. Trees, ocean... as far as the eye could see.

He sighed, and stood to walk toward the cave mouth. He needed to get cleaned up. Luckily, there was plenty of water about.

He returned minutes later, his hands clean and his body cold and soaked, desperately in need of the warmth of the fire.

Well, they had shelter, a fire, and food. They'd left a lot behind, a week's worth of prep, but at least they weren't out in the rain-catching hypothermia.

She grimaced a little at his question. "...Just... land." She was equally as reluctant to really dwell on what the landscape had looked like.

She remained silent as he got up and left. Once he was outside she stood and headed over to their newly acquired meal. It didn't take long to extract a few of the larger bones from obvious places on its body. Fresh ones would help fuel the fire with dripping fat, and with him going out in the rain they'd need it extra hot to warm the place up.

By the time he came back, the meat was almost done cooking and the whole inside of the cave smelled like crackling fat and dinner. She glanced at him momentarily as he sat, stood, and headed over to carcass. It was a huge animal, and there was a lot of thick, wiry fur still on it. She'd never tried to separate layers of the ski before because why the heck would she? But she'd spent an awful amount of time watching him skin things for almost two weeks so she kinda good idea of the skin being its own separate layer. It would still need to dry eventually, but she figured if she could get it off in one layer without extra blood and stuff it would at least help warm the older man back up.

Psyching herself up, she dug her fingers through the fur, pinched the skin, and focused on what she wanted to do. In one fluid movement, like she was trying to rip a table cloth off a table without disturbing anything on top (which she could totally do with ease, btw) she yanks the fur and a few layers of skin off in none big, clean sheet.

It was almost startling how easily it parted. Kinda like pulling chicken bones out had been ages ago. Being a living thing with skin and bones herself she didn't often think about how all of those things were separate and just worked together, instead of one big mass of stuff.

"Uh... here?"

She held the weirdly fresh-but-not-bloody pelt out to him. It was big enough for him to wrap himself in with plenty of extra.

The moment of crippling existential crisis causing revelation passed with him leaving the space. The storm outside was almost a welcome reprieve from the thoughts in his head. They were never getting back. There was no one here with them. There was nothing here but them, giant monsters, and a dangerous storm.

She had the fire roaring by the time he was back, and he sat and watched in mild frustration at the ease in which she extracted the pelt of the animal. All those times he'd had to skin their prey... she could have just... He pinched the bridge of his nose as she held out the pelt, and he just sighed and pointed off to the side. The fire would be enough to keep him warm, and they had to let it cure so that it would keep.

One meal later, it was just them and the fire... he frowned a bit... The roar of the wind outside reminded him that they would be here a while. For almost two week now they had been silently avoiding having any real conversation. They both just went about and did their own thing. Now they were trapped in a cave.

There was nowhere to hide.

"... How you... Eh... How you holdin up?" It was a stupid question, but it was one he hadn't asked this whole time. Better late than never.

Sheepishly, she backpedaled and hurried to put the pelt over by the other one. Hah, duh. Of course, she hadn't meant like for him to try and use it right then. Of course not. That'd be stupid.

So very stupid.

The teen plopped back down in her spot, claimed a chunk of too-hot meat and began fussing at it in order to distract herself. It didn't last long though. He finished long before her as she plucked away and after lapsing into the usual silence suddenly threw a question at her out of nowhere.

"Oh. Um. I'm fine, ya know? I'm good."

She didn't sound sad, or angry, or any other real emotion. Just... good. Currently fine. All of her immediate needs were taken care of so... no issues, right?

She lapsed back into silence, staring at him with an expression blank of really any emotional cues.

"....How are you?" Well this was awkward, wasn't it?

The older mutant watched her as she responded. It was odd. She did seem fine. After all of this, she was either really good at lying, or she didn't mind being here a whole lot. He nodded silently, and stared into the obscenely gothic bone fire for a while.

She responded. He stared a while longer. "We are going to be here a while... Eh... I guess, I gotta say it... I don't see any way to get back. So... Might as well talk. Hell, people go insane if they do this alone, and... If we ain't talkin, we might as well be doin this alone."

He wasn't good at this. The truth was, he was here at the worst possible time he could be here. He'd just broken up with his therapist. His family was broken apart, and the city was still recovering from the deaging crisis. And here he was. In the past. About to live the rest of his life with a kid.

"@^$^ ain't good for me, kid. I miss my son. I miss my daughter... Juniper, I wasn't at Doc's office to investigate. I was there because... Life ain't been so great. And... I guess... I feel like it's my fault. I was... havin thoughts. Bad ones. So... I went to him to try and sort it out." He poked at the fire with a long rib bone, an absent minded task to keep him distracted from what he was saying. He felt the need to get it off his chest.

"I guess... I put value on myself as a protector. Someone who keeps people safe. And... When the times comes... I always seem to fail to protect those closest to me. When that happens, my life... falls apart. And I feel... Like a failure." He stared deeply as his vision began to blur. He'd never told this to anyone. Doc had said something like that to him at one point, and at the time he'd just gotten angry in response... But it was true. That #@$%ing bug was right all along.

"And now... Family needs me... and I'm here. And I ain't gonna be back... and.. #@$%. Juniper, I'm not- I'm not okay." There it was. The dam was broken, the tears flowed freely, and the man who some saw as an indestructible force of nature sobbed quietly as he stared into the crackling mess of burning bones.