Lee didn’t see Tarin nod when she spoke, but she did hear his words. ”Thank you, Tarin,” she said, finally looking up at him again. It was alway hard for her to accept help, to ask for help. Always had been. But with the situation in her head at the moment, it became so much easier.

Because she knew that she was so close to being helpless then.

”It’s strange,” Lee continued after a few moments, her voice still very quiet but she continued looking up at Tarin now as she spoke. ”When there’s an adapted around, I can still feel all the energy I have, for as long as it lasts, but I can’t use it at all, I can’t get more.”

Tarin just nodded again. This conversation had never really been lighthearted, but it had certainly taken a very quick, dark turn.

At least Lee was looking at him now and Tarin held her eyes and her hands steadily as she spoke.

They’d talked about adapteds before, about how their powers reacted when an adapted was around. Lee had said that it was disorienting and that she couldn’t take the energy she needed…but not being able to use energy that she already had was another thing entirely.

How could she have possibly known that? ”Did you find that out in Florida…when you were helping that adapted friend of yours?”

Lee shook her head as she bit her lip when Tarin asked if she found that out in Florida. ”No. Well, I guess technically I did with Jacen when we met,” Lee replied, her voice still quiet. ”We were running and I couldn’t keep up.

“But no, that’s not why I need to know how to fight without my powers,” Lee continued, swallowing the lump that was trying to form in her throat. ”I was kidnapped, by an adapted. He had a gun, but even if he hadn’t I didn’t have the strength to get out of his grip, or force the locked car door open.”

Lee took a deep breath, her eyes dropping slightly again. ”I didn’t have much energy to start with that day. By the time he left, I couldn’t get myself out of there. God, I tried…For as long as I had the energy to…”

“Sometimes I could feel a person, but never close enough, long enough. He did bring food, but it was sheer force of will to even attempt eating a bit. After…I don’t even know, a week? I didn’t even feel hungry anymore.”

No. It hadn’t been the search for the serial killer in Florida.

No. It was far far worse than that.

This hadn’t been in the folder. Then again, the folder had been set up as a series of accomplishments, things that Lee had done that would show her sister just how capable Lee was. This…this was just living horror.

She’d been kidnapped at gunpoint. By an adapted. When it had happened she had realized that she couldn’t use any of her excess energy and had been too weak to get away but she’d tried…

As she spoke, if she was looking, she’d have seen the absolute horror on Tarin’s face at what he was hearing. Horror that slowly turned to something else. Tarin shook his head and cursed softly.

He’d been amused when Lee had asked him if any of the he’d grown up around had come through the rift. Now he understood completely.

”You got away. Is he dead?” Tarin asked very quietly, suddenly understanding Michael’s way of thinking.

That wasn’t productive though. Taking a deep breath, Tarin kept his hands on Lee’s.

”How long?”

As she finished speaking, Lee stood there just staring at their hands, focusing on the feeling of the energy flowing into her. Not any faster or stronger than she would normally siphon, but she focused on the feeling of it.

The feeling of the energy was comforting in a way right now that it never really was

Lee was so focused on it, just the fact that her powers were working, that she almost didn’t hear Tarin’s question. So it took a couple moments for her brain to go back over what he’d said before she shook her head.

”I was discovered by pure luck,” she whispered. ”A cop stumbled in on another case. Found me in that creepy house.”

Then Tarin asked how long. Lee’s eyes slid closed as her lips pressed tightly together. ”Three months,” Lee’s voice was barely above a breath when she finally spoke. ”And no. They never found him.”

”Three months!” Tarin exclaimed, probably louder than Lee had ever heard his voice.

Three months Lee had been in that creepy house. Tarin didn’t know what that meant, and honestly he didn’t really care what it meant. It was just the fact that Lee had been in said creepy house that was making Tarin understand the phrase ‘seeing red’. ”Three months and they only found you by chance?”

It didn’t matter that New York City was huge and people went missing every day who were never heard from again. It didn’t matter that because an adapted had been involved it would have made it difficult for even a mutant to find Lee.

All that mattered was that she had been alone somewhere in a creepy house for three months with no energy.

And nobody had ever found him.

Tarin wasn’t just angry. Tarin was livid. That had to be a good word for what this was. He hadn’t let go of Lee’s hands, not with the way she’d been holding onto him and looking at their hands, but he wanted to pace or hit something.

”Nobody hunted that son of a bitch down and ended him?” Tarin said softly and very dangerously, ”Not one of your X-Men friends, or your other friends from this Kabal group, not your husband? Not the adapted cop who hunts down serial killers in his spare time?”

If Lee’s voice had been barely audible when she said she’d been kidnapped for three months, Tarin’s voice was on the opposite end of the spectrum. Lee actually jumped when she heard Tarin’s exclamation, her eyes shooting up to him in shock and surprise.

Tarin had told her in the past that he just didn’t get mad because there was no real point to it.

Apparently rage was a different matter altogether, because not only was Tarin feeling it, Lee was able to see it on his face, in his body, hear it in his voice.

This was, by far, the most emotion Lee had seen from Tarin. He was absolutely seething in front of her. And yet he had not pulled his hands out of hers, he hadn’t removed the source of energy she had clung to, was grounding herself with.

Suddenly Tarin’s voice was quiet. Asking whether anyone had ever hunted Anton down. Lee shook her head slightly. ”Not that I know of,” Lee admitted, her voice also quiet. ”If anyone did, they didn’t tell me and didn’t find him. But it also took a while for me to recover. Even with energy, my body wasn’t very strong for a while, and with the extra weight of carrying Kevin around 24/7 now that I could move again…”

Nobody.

Nobody had found him.

And that wasn’t all.

”This happened while you were pregnant with Kevin…Jesus Christ Lee.?” Tarin said, so angry that he was finding it a little hard to breathe at this point.

The guy was still out there, whoever he was. Tarin wondered who he could get information from, where he could ask around to get the details of what had happened. He wasn’t going to pry for more info from Lee. That was for sure.

He needed to calm down. Lee had jumped when he’d gotten loud before and she was still looking at him.

”Okay…” he said, mostly to himself, taking a deep breath and releasing it slowly. ”I cannot believe that nobody….” Tarin started to say, then stopped when he immediately started to get furious again.

”I am so sorry.” he said, squeezing Lee’s hand between his. ”I am so sorry that so many things have happened to you that never should have happened.” he said, finally starting to pull himself together.

”This happened while you were pregnant with Kevin…Jesus Christ Lee.”

Lee nodded. As if the whole story, the whole ordeal hadn't been had enough without being pregnant. ”I was,” she whispered.

It seemed like Tarin was starting to calm down. Until he spoke again.

Then he was saying that he was sorry she had been through everything she had. And squeezing her hand.

Lee finally let Tarin’s hands go and moved around the counter toward him. The moment that she got close enough, Lee wrapped her arms around Tarin, hugging him tightly.

Tarin didn’t even know what to do.

He wanted to do something completely unhinged. He wanted to tear the city apart piece by piece until he managed to find the sick bastard who had done what Lee had said. It wasn’t practical though. It wasn’t possible. Not now.

Tarin was going to find him though. It might take time, but Tarin had resources and just because he couldn’t connect with spirits when they were around an adapted didn’t mean that they ceased to exist.

All these thoughts were going through his head as he tried to breathe, as he looked at Lee across the counter where they’d been standing for this whole conversation.

Lee released his hands and Tarin realized they were still shaking, but then she moved around the counter and wrapped her arms around him. Tarin did the same and held her tight and just stayed where they were. Slowly, Tarin breathed, the same way he’d told Kevin to breathe when they were in the park.

What could he even say? ”I’m so sorry…” he settled for again, still angry, but able to think now…to rationalize the thoughts that had been running through his mind the last few minutes.

”I’m gonna take the day off.” he said after a few moments, ”We can get take out for lunch or something. Watch a movie.” he didn’t care.

Lee just stood there, hugging Tarin, her head on his shoulder, eyes closed. Tarin’s arms around her holding her just as tightly. And, Lee thought, she felt Tarin’s arms, his hands, shaking slightly. Lee hadn’t noticed his hands shaking before.

Though, maybe it was her who was shaking. That would explain why she hadn’t noticed Tarin’s hands shaking.

And just stood there. Listening to Tarin’s steady breathing. Holding him close, her forearms laying flat against his back as her hands clutched at him slightly. Feeling the energy from all points of contact between them.

All of it telling her, making her feel that she was safe. Slowly her hands relaxed, but she continued hugging Tarin just as tightly.

”I’m gonna take the day off.”

Lee was about to argue, to tell Tarin that he didn’t need to do that, that she’d be ok, she just needed a few more minutes like this with him. Then Lee realized that maybe he wasn’t deciding to take the day off just to make sure that she was alright.

Maybe Tarin needed the day off after everything that morning.

So Lee just nodded, her head still against Tarin’s shoulder. ”I like that idea,” she whispered.

She liked that idea.

Well good, because he would have taken the day of either way. There was no way after all of this that he would have been able to sit in here all afternoon and listen to the people who’d had appointments. He could make up the appointments later, it wasn’t like his clients had anywhere to go and he was usually very reliable.

So, that decided, Tarin just stood there holding Lee, trying to work through what had just happened.

This was why he so studiously avoided getting angry. Having spent so much effort, for so long trying to simply not feel the emotion, he didn’t know what to do or how to handle it when he was angry…or positively murderous.

Tarin wasn’t angry now. No, he’d managed to calm himself to a point where he was breathing normally and was no longer shaking. Lee didn’t need to see him like that, didn’t need to try to make him feel better when she had been the one who had been so terribly wronged.

So there he stood, and there he would keep standing until Lee was ready to move.

Lee stood there, just hugging Tarin and otherwise not moving for a long time. Maybe ten minutes later, Lee loosened her arms around Tarin, but did not step back completely out of his embrace; she merely pulled back far enough to be able to look up at him.

She thought that she was about ready, calmed and grounded enough after everything that they had talked about that morning that she would be able to go outside again.

”Did you have any ideas for lunch?” Lee asked as she looked up into Tarin’s eyes. ”Or should we just go home and get something delivered later?”

They stood like that for a long time, and honestly Tarin was glad for it. Standing like that he didn’t have to try to talk, or act like everything was fine. Standing like that, he’d just been able to take some time to feel right again. Well, at least as right as he was going to feel. After a while, he just closed his eyes and breathed.

Eventually Lee pulled back a bit and Tarin kept his arms right where they were. She asked if he had any ideas for lunch and Tarin just shook his head a bit mutely. Honestly, he wasn’t all that hungry.

”Let’s just get something later.” he said, ”I’m not super hungry unless you are, kind of just want to go home.”

Tarin wasn’t really hungry. Lee nodded. Just getting home where they could relax and hopefully forget about everything that had happened and been discussed that morning sounded like a much better idea at the moment than food. Food could always happen later.

”Sounds good to me,” Lee said softly, unwrapping one arm from around Tarin. She then lifted her hand up to his cheek, stretching up on her toes to give him a kiss.

”Lets go home then,” she continued after a moment. ”See if we can’t find a movie with enough romance in it to make Kevin leave in disgust so we can have the living room to ourselves.”