Sebastian hadn't expected such an emotional reaction, at least, not this kind of emotion. He supposed it was rather a lot of information to be hit with all at once. The future, Jude, Romania. Part of it, or all of it brought tears to the neuromancer's eyes and left him leaning against the wall, hand stretched in Sebastian's direction.

Sebastian took the hand, “Of course you'll meet Jude when he comes. You'll be the first one we introduce him to after Maya's father.” Cold fire spread down Sebastian's arm and pooled at Garrett's elbow, finished the mending that the other man's body was naturally doing. Hopefully the physical healing would also bring some sort of emotional comfort. Garrett seemed lost; his words were directed at Sebastian as if aimed through the cloudy vapors between two completely different realms. The neuromancer's eyes looked through him, to some far off place, or perhaps some distant possible future.

Then, he was back again, his grip on Sebastian's hand firm and real again.

There was no response appropriate for Garrett's gift of complete trust other than the one the healer now gave, “Thank you.”

His hand outstretched, Garrett felt the cooling sensation of Sebastian's healing, the itch and pain in his elbow receding with the near instant healing of the wound. It calmed him somewhat and he nodded in return, welcoming him for the trust given. He took a tentative step up off of his knees and walked to the window, wiping the tears away with his sleeve as he looked out into the alley adjacent. " In the future, I had visited Project Gulf Stream and met Jude as an adult. I also met those X-Force members you spoke of. Maya was losing herself at a rather advanced rate by then and I, being a doctor at the time, tried to help her."

What to tell? What not to tell? Garrett couldn't be so much of a hypocrite as to give a man his implicit trust and then paint it in lies. " I'm in no hurry to meet Jude.He is a living, breathing signpost and I shouldn't see him until I can wrap my mind around all of these developments. Anyway, Maya and I went to Antarctica, where I lived, studied and worked. The place was called the Colony and it was a monument of mutant brotherhood. We had three hundred mutants living there in large ice domes pulled from the region. Everything was self sustainable and we used our mutations to live and work together, separated from the violent world that had been created due to Haywire."

Garrett's mind drifted back to the only place he ever remembered as home, though the irony being that he was really thinking forward, to a place that had apparently only lived in a dream. But here was the mention of a child who lived as a man in that dream, in that future's past. He could only rub his temples and try to push the migraine away that wanted to form from the juxtaposition of time, space, and reality. Best to remain with current events for sanity's sake.

Sebastian's eyes widened at the mention of Garrett's experience with helping Ghost in the future. "What did you do? Was it successful," he asked eagerly. His tail swished back and forth once, in anticipation of good news. Anything that could help her, he wanted to know about as soon as possible. If he could learn now what would work, maybe he could stop the process before it progressed to the point where she was 'pretty far gone'. Nine years left or less.

He was almost to the point where he was ready for the medical entrance exams, so he could become a doctor rather than just a healer. Garrett had already been one. Any shortcuts to a cure the neural manipulator could provide would be greatly appreciated.

The shadows of the future haunted them both. Garrett didn't even want to meet Jude, who was a symbol of that future, at least not quite yet. Sebastian wasn't sure how he'd ba able to avoid running into him, once he arrived. They were going to be next door neighbors, after all. Sebastian shrugged, whenever he wanted the official introduction, he could have it.

The mention of ice domes and a self sufficient colony in Antarctica triggered something in Sebastian's memory, "I remember something about that place. I didn't visit it myself, but I arranged for a connection to be made between a school and the colony, for the learning experience it provided. There was someone there called Peacekeeper, and I emailed him." Sebastian scratched his chin where his chin hair was starting to grow back from yesterday's shave, or the day before's depending on the timezone one was counting. He didn't remember how to send an email, he just knew that he had successfully done it at one point.

If the colony was the other man's eventual goal, it was a noble one. The peaceful colony had been a good example to the rest of the world what true teamwork could be like. And true peace.

Regaining his composure, Garrett looked at Sebastian, whose composure was brightening at the thought of saving Maya. He really did love her and Garrett was glad that the two had met. " At the time, we had a strange artist by the name of Zelek aiding us. He made a kind of flesh mold for Maya and she inhabited it, using the physical body as an anchor. I wish I had done more about it at the time, but it wasn't my field. Perhaps I should try to become a geneticist, or find someone who can do that for me. Sounds a little heavy for what I can manage."

Perhaps paramedic would just be a step in the chain. Perhaps Garrett could become a doctor again. Perhaps the Colony was still there, like an unplanted seed, waiting to be born. He just shrugged. All of the news had left him a bit out of his mind and it wasn't easy to put all of the pieces together. He took a seat next to Sebastian again, the weight of off his legs and feet a nice relief. It was as if he had been hit with a bomb, the shell shock leaving him deaf and reeling.

"I remember something about that place. I didn't visit it myself, but I arranged for a connection to be made between a school and the colony, for the learning experience it provided. There was someone there called Peacekeeper, and I emailed him."

Fortunately he was already in shock, so another sortie of explosions didn't faze him much. His face turned into a wry grin." Oh,yes. The Pax Academy. I remember now. You were the headmaster. You sent Sara Nobes and Iris there to meet me." While he couldn't remember his martial arts traing or much of the monastery, nor his years at the hospital and his internship, Garrett could remember the Colony as if he were there this moment. " I am Peacekeeper."

Sebastian filed away the name Zelek; it was odd, he felt almost as if he'd heard the name or read it somewhere before, but he couldn't remember when or where. If they found this same mutant again, he could perhaps help, but without him that particular method seemed impossible to replicate from just the brief description. Still, it gave him a sliver of hope that something could be done again. He was back to the drawing board.

Then, Garrett's admission that he was the man on the other end of the dream email. Sebastian blinked, of course he was. He should have remembered that. It was one of those details from the dream that he recognized, but had been clouded over by larger more traumatic events.

To Garrett, he gave one nod to show he remembered, “So you are”. Present tense, even. While some things from the dream would never happen, others really were meant to be.

The other man had settled into his chair with a mighty sigh, and still looked pretty shocked about the information Sebastian had revealed. It seemed as though there wasn't much more information he could deal with right now. Also, Sebastian's tea had gotten colder than he liked it.

“I'm going to go warm this up, do you want me to get you anything from the kitchen?” Sebastian departed and soon was back with a freshly steaming cup, two hot cranberry muffins, and the day's newspapers. With the exception of the tea, it was all to share. He settled back into his chair with the London Times open in his lap and absentmindedly scratched at his ring finger with his free hand. Romania was still on the front page; though it was looking better and better all the time. It wouldn't be long until it was bumped back to page eight, and the eventually faded from the papers altogether. It wouldn't fade from Sebastian's memory so quickly or easily.