Slate's response was loud. Maybe not extremely loud, but it felt like it because it was the loudest noise she had heard in the infirmary in the last two weeks. Because it was so much louder than her question had been.

Hearing the words Slate was using, hearing him say that the state Tarin was in was worse than death, Lee backed up even more, her eyes on Tarin, until the back of her legs hit the chair sitting not far from the bed and she fell down into it.

Her eyes were still locked on Tarin's face, a face she knew oh so very well. How could that not be Tarin? How could there be nothing there to heal? Nothing left there to be able to die? How the hell? What did that mean?

Then Lee started to feel some energy over to the side. Probably DocProf coming to see what all the noise was about, since as far as he knew she had left. Turning her head, Lee didn't see anything there, though, and the frown that had been on her face deepened. Again, she was feeling energy from someone, but there was no one there. And this time, there was no wall or anything between her and where the energy might have been coming from.

"What the hell is going on here?" Lee asked, more of herself than of Slate, turning her frustrated and confused face back to Tarin's unconscious form. "How can he be here but not here? Tarin's always there, even when it's not him..."

Doc had established rules. Lee had to leave the infirmary at certain times, she had to be away for certain amounts of time. Tarin agreed, he'd stood behind the doc nodding his approval as he'd laid down the law. The look on Lee's face had made it hard to keep agreeing though, she wasn't holding up well.

Truth be told, Tarin wasn't holding up well either. It had been two weeks, fourteen days since Rupert had tied him to a gravestone and left him in the cold New York night. Fourteen days since he'd sought escape from the seeming multitude of spirits who'd appeared. Fourteen days since he'd managed to remove himself from his body and unfortunately out of reach from everyone in the living realm. Doc didn't have a clue that was really the problem, all he could do was shake his head and say that there was nothing physically wrong.

Lee had to leave the infirmary, but Tarin had discovered on even the first night that he could go with her anywhere she went. Even to the apartment. She didn't go there often, not often at all, most of her time was spent next to his inert body. His body was changing, two weeks without take-out food, being fed through IV and the tube they'd finally fed down his nose was having a decided effect. Tarin wondered if he ever got back in his body if he could patent this method as a diet and make some money.

Tarin shook his head on this day when Lee left, following her out and into her seemingly endless rounds of the mansion. He could move about tirelessly, he never slept and at least he got to watch Lee as she moved. Sometimes...sometimes he got the feeling that she knew he was there.

At the apartment, for example, Lee had been packing her things into her bag and the absolutely helplessness in her look had staggered Tarin with emotion he wasn't sure he was even feeling anymore. Lee had looked up though, startled and had checked to see if anyone else was there. Tarin had tried to talk to her, tried to touch her, but the moment was brief and Lee had moved on with her packing.

That wasn't the case now, though, she hadn't looked in his general direction for days. She was walking, quietly, presumably thinking as she usually did while she walked. Then, she ran into someone familiar and actually struck up a conversation. Tarin didn't know the boy, he'd been in a hospital bed at that point too. Though as it turned out, Lee didn't know him either, he was a twin.

The conversation progressed and Tarin frowned at Lee's explanations of who she was and why she was there. Then, the boy pointed out that he was a healer. In spite of himself, Tarin let the faintest glimmer of hope work its way through the haze of depression that was increasingly thick as time went by.

It wasn't long until they were back in the infirmary and the boy was trying his talent...Tarin watched, but nothing felt different. Then the boy was jerking back, obviously distraught and troubling Lee. At first, Tarin was just pissed, how could someone be so insinsitive to a woman whose husband was lying in a coma not three feet away. But then Tarin caught what the boy was actually saying, and what Lee was saying in return and Tarin whooped with glee.

Until that point, nobody had been able to figure out that there was anything wrong with Tarin. They'd all said the same thing Doc did...that there was nothing wrong. Here was someone who knew what he was talking about. This boy, Slate, knew that there was something wrong here. As much as he hated to leave Lee, Tarin decided that he was going to have to get to work. The boy was obviously confused and distraught, but he'd try again. Tarin had a feeling that this boy was going to try again, there was the hope again. This time, Tarin gave it free reign.

Slate's frowning focus on the man's body was broken, at the sound of scuffing chair legs. He looked up in time to see the woman fall into a seat. Her eyes seemed to stray to a random place in the room. A flush crept up his neck and into his cheeks: guilt.

>> "What the hell is going on here? How can he be here but not here? Tarin's always there, even when it's not him..."

The questions may have been rhetorical, but Slate answered them in any case, his head ducking. "I do not know, Mrs--Lee. And... I am sorry to cause you such distress. I should have thought more carefully before I spoke. I... I have simply never encountered anything like this before."

"I can assure you, your husband is not dead, or brain dead--I believe I would know," he tried to reassure her, by explaining what he had felt further. "My power works through connecting with a person's mind; I am a psychic healer, if you will. With your husband... it is not that his mind is injured; it is simply that it is not where it should be. It is not here," Slate said, gesturing again at the body.

He looked back up at the young bride's eyes. "If I may ask, what are your husband's powers? Does he have any enemies that would be capable of this?"

Lee hadn't expected Slate to answer her questions, how could he really answer the question of how Tarin could be there and yet not there when he'd been confused by it to start with too? But he started speaking, started trying to explain what he thought was going on.

By the time that he got to the part saying he was sure Tarin wasn't dead, or brain dead, Lee's eyes had moved from Tarin's still form up to Slate's face. That's something Lee hadn't wanted to think about, the possibility of Tarin being brain dead. She'd avoided thinking about it at all costs, tried not to connect it to what else she had been told, but there was the fact that DocProf had told her that very first night that Tarin had minimal brain activity.

But Slate was now thinking that Tarin's mind wasn't there and that's why he was in this coma, that's why he hadn't been able to heal him.

Then Slate was looking back up at her, asking about Tarin's powers, and if he had any enemies that might be able to do this. Lee couldn't help it, she laughed. It was far from a happy sound, though. "Yeah, Tarin's got an enemy," Lee said after a moment or two. "But there's no way Rupert could have done this to him. If Tarin had been shot, or beaten, I'd have no trouble believing it had been Rupert, but there's no way he could have done this."

Shaking her head, Lee took a breath as she thought about the best way to describe Tarin's powers. "Well, he's a spirit medium," Lee started slowly. Though, maybe this time the explanation would go easier. At least Slate was a mutant, so would more readily believe what she was saying was possible. More so than her brother had, anyway. "He can see, hear, communicate, and if he gives them enough energy, actually interact with spirits.

"And," Lee continued, her eyes dropping again, though this time to her hands in her lap rather than to Tarin. "At times he merges. Him and another person, or him and a spirit, are able to combine, become one."

>> "Yeah, Tarin's got an enemy, but there's no way Rupert could have done this to him. If Tarin had been shot, or beaten, I'd have no trouble believing it had been Rupert, but there's no way he could have done this."

Slate gave a measured nod. If Mrs. Brooks believed the man incapable of this form of attack, then he would trust her opinion. The man himself might not be the issue, however. "Is it possible he hired someone to do this for him? Where and how was your husband discovered? What state was he in, when he was found?"

>> "Well, he's a spirit medium. He can see, hear, communicate, and if he gives them enough energy, actually interact with spirits."

A light bulb went on in Slate's head, as it were. A spirit medium. Something about that ability was familiar; something from the endless Lab logs and paperwork that he had been working his way through. He dismissed it for the moment, but made a mental note to look into things further. If something the Kabal had done was related to the man's state--or if Antonescu had known of another mutant with similar abilities--it might aid in curing Lee's husband.

>> "And. At times he merges. Him and another person, or him and a spirit, are able to combine, become one."

Slate's brows furrowed again. "Is there any chance that it was a merge that did this? Could he have combined with a spirit that did not wish to remain in his body, or with a mutant whose powers could somehow cause this? How long does it typically take for a merge to end?"

Could Rupert have hired someone to have done this to Tarin? Again Lee laughed slightly at the idea, shaking her head. "What are the chances that a human could have done this?" Lee asked. "And there's not a chance in hell that Rupert would have hired a mutant."

But where and how was Tarin discovered? Lee blinked as she realized she didn't actually know the answers to those questions. Tarin had been supposed to be coming home so they could go out for an early Valentine's Day dinner, and then Lee had gotten a call saying she needed to come to the mansion. And had arrived to find Tarin like this, out cold, with minimal brain activity. His brother, who apparently hated him, had been the one to find him, and then bring him to a mutant school...So many strange and upsetting things had happened that night, and yet in the next two weeks, Lee had not asked how Tarin had been found.

"I didn't find him," Lee said slowly, trying not to actually say that she had no clue about the answers to the first questions Slate had asked. "But no, I don't think a merge could have done this to him. I've never seen anything even remotely like this before."

As she spoke, Lee's eyes closed. Merges weren't easy to talk about at the best of times. Tarin laying there in a coma, even if the details about the merges were very vague, was far from being the best of times. "No, the spirits have always seemed to want it, have tried to force it, when they've merged with Tarin. They've all wanted something they need a body to do. And how long for a merge to end? Heh. However long it takes for me to figure it out and I end it."

Again, Lee felt energy beside her, not just in front which would have been from Tarin and Slate. And again Lee turned her head. Only this time, someone was there, DocProf was walking over.

"I thought you'd left for a while."

Lee thought he looked worried as he walked over to check on Tarin, but then he always seemed to look worried when he came over to this part of the room. Lee hadn't been able to figure out whether it was worry about Tarin, or her, though.

Rather than answer him, Lee decided to repeat Slate's questions since of probably everyone in the mansion, he'd be the one to know the answers. "Where and when was Tarin found?" Lee asked the doctor, leaning forward in her chair for the first time since she had so ungracefully fallen into it. "Do you know how he was when he was found? How was he when he got here?"

"Like this, unfortunately," the doctor replied, only glancing over at Lee briefly while he checked on Tarin. "He was already out like this when he was found. Not wearing a coat. Taped or tied up, too. I think the man who brought him in said to a gravestone. It's in my notes, I co-"

"What?!?" Lee exclaimed, cutting the doctor off as she shot to her feet. "To a gravestone? You mean in a cemetery?"

Lee's heart was pounding in a way it hadn't in days, and tears sprang to her eyes. But not the same kind of tears that had been threatening for the last two weeks. Actually, if Lee were to sit and think about it, she probably wouldn't be able to tell you why the tears were there. Horror, maybe?

"Yes, I believe that's what he said."

"Oh my god," Lee mumbled as she moved forward, toward Tarin, staring at his face as she ran her hand through his hair.

After a minute, Lee looked back up at Slate. "Merges don't do this to him," She whispered. "But if he was in a...I can't even begin to imagine what he would have seen...We didn't even go visit his father's grave when we went to see his mother because he was worried about going into a graveyard..."

Slate nodded amiably to the DocProf as he approached, his thoughts distracted. He looked down on the man's body as Mrs. Brooks and the Mansion's doctor spoke, trying to make sense out of what she had just told him of the man's mutation and what he himself had felt when he'd touched Mr. Brook's body. He could speak with the spirits of the dead. And those spirits could 'merge' with him--'possess' him, Slate was beginning to suspect, from the way she spoke. However that worked, it was not like this. The man's own powers had not done this, then. So what had? Not a human; he could think of no way a human could possibly evoke this effect. A mutant, then. It could only be the work of another mutant.

>> "What?!?" To a gravestone? You mean in a cemetery?"

The chair clattered backwards again. Slate's surprised blink mirrored the DocProf's own expression. Slowly, his face calmed into the serene blankness of horror.

There were tears in her eyes.

That meant that she was crying.

The Kabal leader's gaze flicked towards the DocProf, as if to request assistance.

>> "Yes, I believe that's what he said."

>> "Oh my god."

He watched as she stroked her husband's hair. He had heard that silence was sometimes appropriate, in these situations. He hoped that now was such a time. If it was not, than he was at a loss as to what else he was supposed to do. The depths of her emotion did not invite trespassers.

>> "Merges don't do this to him. But if he was in a...I can't even begin to imagine what he would have seen...We didn't even go visit his father's grave when we went to see his mother because he was worried about going into a graveyard..."

Slate wrestled with this new information, fitting it in with what she had told him previously. "Are there many spirits at a graveyard?" He hazarded. An inane guess, even if it was correct. "What would happen if more than one spirit attempted to merge with him at a time?"

Lee's hands were running through Tarin's hair, brushing across his cheek, similar to how they would if he were awake and she had just found out something like this. Similar to how she would if she were trying to calm him down. But she was the only one feeling the horror about it; Tarin still hadn't moved, hadn't changed, other than the small movements of his chest as he breathed.

She didn't answer Slate right away, though. So instead, apparently the doctor thought he should. "Well, I would guess that there'd be a lot of spirits and ghosts in a graveyard."

Lee's eyes shot to the older man. "And you didn't think to tell me where Tarin had been found?"

"You were already upset. I didn't think it pertinent to-"

"Pertinent?" Lee cut the doctor off again, finally moving her eyes from Tarin's face. "You're dealing with mutants here, and something you can't explain, yet you thought it better to try and spare me a bit of extra pain than to tell me about how he was found?"

As she finished speaking, Lee found her eyes drifting back to her husband's face. If he had really been found in a graveyard like that, he shouldn't be looking so calm, so peaceful laying there, should he? But then, if what Slate had said was true...

"Lee, you need to calm down. And if you'll just step out of the way so I can check Tarin..."

"No," Lee said, turning her eyes back to the doctor, then taking a step toward him. Was she angry? Just a touch. "You're not going to 'check him over'. There's nothing wrong with him, remember? So get out. Just...get out."

Turning her back on the doctor, Lee returned to Tarin, her hand reaching for his hair again. It was only then that Lee remembered about Slate's question. Biting her lower lip, she looked up at him slowly. "I really don't know," she whispered. "He fights them off as much as he can, but it exh-tires him." Yes, Lee had corrected herself, because when Tarin fought off spirits trying to merge with him, it didn't exhaust him, it simply tired him. What exhausted him was when she had to use her powers to stop a merge, whether it was before or after it had happened.

"I honestly don't know what would happen if more than one tried, though..."

...It became rapidly clear that Mrs. Brooks had not been told the details of her husband's situation. Slate stood awkwardly by as she chewed out the DocProf, keeping the stillness of a rabbit who sees the hawk's shadow swooping large over a neighboring mouse. Apologies, DocProf, but he did not wish that attention to come his way. The woman was slightly frightening when she snapped.

>> "...So get out. Just...get out."

...And now he was alone with her. Ah.

>> "I really don't know. He fights them off as much as he can, but it exh-tires him."

He did not understand the cause for her self-correction, nor was he unwise enough to inquire, at this particular time. He did nod, though. Nod: he was listening.

>> "I honestly don't know what would happen if more than one tried, though..."

"Then perhaps that is what happened," Slate postulated quietly. The woman herself seemed more subdued, now that the DocProf had retreated; he was happy for the sudden switch in volume levels, but uncertain how long it would last. "If you would permit me, I would like to continue trying to heal your husband. If this is in some way related to his abilities, then perhaps we are all going about this in the wrong manner. I... would like time to think upon it. He is not dead. Therefore, he can be healed. I simply... do not know how, yet."

Slate looked down at the body again, his frown returning. This was a puzzle that required thought. Slate was good at thinking.

Slate wanted to try and heal Tarin again. He wasn't sure how, yet, but seemed sure that he'd be able to figure it out, even if it took a long time and a lot of thought.

But, that was more than she had gotten from DocProf in two weeks. All she had gotten from him, time and time again, was that there was nothing physically wrong with Tarin, he had no idea what the problem was.

So Lee nodded in agreement. "Yeah, any time you want to try," Lee told Slate. "I'm down here most of the day, except for when the Doc kicks me out, for 'my own good'. I'm normally around somewhere, but DocProf and Sam both have my number, and I've always got my cell on me these days."

Lee shut her mouth, she was starting to ramble a bit. But then, this was almost the most real interaction she had had in a couple days. Yes, she talked with Shin almost every day, and Sam quite often, as well as DocProf when he was asking how she was holding up, or when he was telling her it was time to leave for a while, but this was different. Plus, Slate actually seemed like he might be able to find a way to help Tarin. Very different from all of those other situations.

"But yeah, any time you want to give it a try again," Lee continued with a nod. "Or, if you have questions that might help us figure this out, just find me."

He had the young bride's consent, then. Slate gave another nod. After his meeting with the Mansion heads, he would--

The meeting. Slate's attention jerked to the watch on his wrist. His shoulders visibly relaxed at what he saw there: still well over an hour left. Still, the point remained that being late to that meeting was not the sort of first impression he wished to make, and staying in this room was liable to distract his attention further; he would probably keep trying to heal the man, though it was doomed to be a futile effort without rethinking his approach. No, staying in front of this inanimate body was not a good idea for him. Nor did it seem to be particularly good for Mrs. Brooks' mental state. Not that Slate was going to be as unwise as the DocProf, and suggest as much.

Instead, he went for a slightly more tactful route. He raised baby blue eyes to the woman. "I fear I have a meeting later this afternoon that I must prepare for. Namely," he explained, with the barest hint of a smile, "I have not yet eaten lunch."

"Would you like to accompany me to the kitchen?" Slate offered. "Perhaps it would keep the DocProf from pestering you for a time, and, if you do not mind, I have observed that talking seems to help me put my thoughts in order. I am meeting with the X-Men shortly," the eighteen year old continued, with a bit of an apologetic shrug, "and I will have to convince them that I am not evil."

Perhaps he should have mentioned that before she allowed him access to her comatose husband.

Slate still had to eat lunch before he had a meeting or something later that afternoon. And asked if she would accompany him to go get that lunch.

Lee blinked as she thought. Had she eaten lunch that day? She wasn't entirely sure. That probably meant it wouldn't be a bad idea to go with Slate, and she could at least have a little something to eat as well.

Before she was able to say anything about going with him to grab lunch, Slate continued, talking about how he was to meet with the X-Men shortly. To convince them that he wasn't evil.

"Convince them you're not what?" Lee asked, her voice raised slightly. Not even close to as loud as it had been when she'd been talking to DocProf, but still louder than it had been most of the time she had been talking to Slate. Her eyes darted between Slate and Tarin, noticing just how close they still were together. But, Slate had tried to heal Tarin, to fix what was wrong, had offered to. That didn't seem evil...

"Why the hell would they think that?" Lee asked, still trying to figure this out. But maybe, just to be on the safe side... "And yeah, I think lunch might be a good idea."

>> "Convince them you're not what?"

Slate winced slightly at the raised voice. Ah. Perhaps he really should rethink this 'honesty' approach. If he had simply sought to psychically control all of the Kabal's members, he would not have had to test the limits of his healing against Miss Evan's explosive abilities; if he had not told Lee that last fact, he would not have alarmed her. If he was not planning on being honest with the X-Men at this upcoming meeting, then it would go much more smoothly.

Lies were quite curious, like that. They were the oil on which the world slid.

>> "Why the hell would they think that? And yeah, I think lunch might be a good idea."

A thin smile perched on his lips. "Then perhaps I should answer your question on the way," Slate began. "The explanation might get fairly long."

As they stepped out into the hall, he began things simply enough: "I recently became the owner of Mondragon Labs," he stated honestly, as the fact it was, "and the leader of the Kabal."

If neither of these statements held weight for her, it would not surprise him. He suspected that they would not even hold much weight for a veteran X-Men. That was the true core of the problem: Antonescu had deceived them to such an extent that they knew next to nothing. Mondragon Labs was best known for hosting the Resistance during the days of the Registration Act. It was not known as a place where mutants were tortured, or their blood samples used in experiments; it was not known as the base from which a violent world domination had been being planned. These were facts that only Slate and a handful of others knew. He was still deciding how much was appropriate to share.

He wanted the X-Men's trust, particularly in the case that Antonescu returned, but he did not want the immortal's shadow to drape itself over his shoulders like a cloak.

"The former leader was a very bad man," Slate understated. "and I am not entirely certain that they will be able to keep his Kabal and my Kabal separate in their minds, if I explain things to them. I would rather not lie, though. There has been enough of that."

The explanation of why he had to convince people later that afternoon that he wasn't evil could get long? Lee really wasn't sure what to think of that, but he was agreeing to leave, to tell her on the way up to the kitchen.

Making sure that Tarin was nicely settled, not that he would really notice, but Lee made sure that his blanket was covering him properly and that there was no hair in his face as she always did before she left the room, Lee nodded and walked out of the infirmary with Slate.

Lee blinked as Slate started speaking. He'd become the owner of Mondragon Labs? That name range a bell, even if the other he gave didn't, and even if at that exact moment Lee couldn't remember why it sounded so familiar.

There was silence now, at least for the moment, and Lee kept glancing sideways at Slate, who appeared to be thinking. Not that she didn't have things to think about too, but people were going to be worried and need convincing that he wasn't evil, so she had more things to worry about.

It was rather hard to believe that he was the owner of these labs and Kabal, though. Slate was still quite young, younger than her, though he did seem to be considerably older than his twin she had met before. Though, not playing with a squeak toy probably had a fair bit to do with that.

Calley! That's why the name Mondragon Labs sounded so familiar; that's where she had met Calley, right after getting out of the Camp. Well, at least she knew what he was talking about now, on one account, anyway.

Slate continued, and Lee's brow furrowed; that's why he was worried people were going to need convincing he wasn't evil? Well, it was a fair worry... but Lee had seen far more evil men than Slate appeared to be walk into the shop as clients.

"Well, if it's the same place, I've been to the labs so have an idea what they are," Lee said slowly as they walked along. It was kind of unbelievable that someone as young as Slate now owned them, though. But, it was also kind of hard to believe that she and Tarin had almost a million dollars in the bank. Being unbelievable did not mean impossible.

"But this...Kabal thing," Lee continued, her voice still slow because of thought. "What is it? What's the difference you're trying to show people?"

A slightly sardonic smile came to the eighteen year old's lips. "Therein lies the problem," he answered simply. "The former Kabal was largely unknown--my predecessor kept them quite well hidden. As such, I have two options: I can share what I know about them with the X-Men of my own free will, and risk it contaminating their opinions of me, or I can hope to bury the past so deeply that it does not return to--what's the phrase?--'bite me in the posterior'." Pardon his watered down French, as they say.

He rubbed at one temple lightly. "As for my own goals for the team... Suffice it to say that I disagree with both the methods of the X-Men and the Order, and the scale at which they work. I wish to change this world. And when I say that," he let his hand drop back to his side, as they continued walking, "I mean it. There are much worse places than New York City, for both mutants and humans. I am leaving soon for Colombia, to oversee the rebuilding of a school there which was destroyed by paramilitants; I do not know how much you know of South American politics, Mrs. Br--Lee, but what newspapers would decry as a terrorist attack, and which would paralyze our nation into grief and rage, are a common events there. As it is in many places, throughout the world. This pointless quarreling between adolescent mutants that the X-Men and the Order seem to relish... It frustrates me. We can do so much more. We can be so much more. We were given brains along with our gifts; I feel that fact is somehow overlooked. We could change the world, and yet it seems like no one tries."

He gave a small, apologetic smile over to the older woman walking by his side. "I am sorry; that became rather long-winded. Suffice it to say that my Kabal will attempt what most see as impossible: we are going to change the world. I would rather fail, than never try."