Detective Jorge Cervantes had not left the hospital while both Lee and Tarin Brooks were still there. Only hours before he had stumbled across the young Lee Brooks, trapped inside of some hidden away house in the middle of a dark, dank warehouse on the outskirts of town. He still needed to question the woman about anything concerning the person who had done this to her. While normally that would be the first thing he would do, he wanted to give the husband and wife time. Lee had been gone for 3 months, at least that is what Mr. Brooks told him. And after all that time, the thing they needed most was to be with each other. The least he could do was give them that.

Still though, the need to get the information to catch the criminal weighed heavily on his head. The longer he waited, the more likely that some tidbits of information could get lost, one or two tiny details that could not be remembered anymore because the victim’s mind wants to lock out all that information. But it would not have been right, simply not right to interrupt them now.

So he waited…and waited.

It was a bit of trouble trying to keep fellow officers from trying to pull the man out. Doctors wanted the husband gone, but Jorge had managed to keep them at bay. After all, they had said that both Lee and her baby would be fine, they just needed some treatment for the malnutrition. The detective doubted that her husband would get in the way of that. But, hospitals did have their certain codes.

But still the detective waited, got whatever information he could from the doctors concerning Lee’s treatment for these past three months, as well as watch the familiar form of DocProf, the mansion’s resident healer come in to check on Lee. He was surprised to see that man there who had helped heal him a couple times in the past. Apparently everyone knew everyone in this city. Then again, why should he be so surprised? Both Tarin and Lee were mutants and that made the odds of them knowing the Doc pretty good, at least in his opinion.

None soon after DocProf arrived and Jorge was on the phone with the CSIs back at the warehouse, he watched as Tarin Brooks finally left. Obviously this must have been done with some errand in mind for Lee. Though he felt bad about questioning Lee now, she might feel a little more free to talk without her husband there. In his experience it was always easier for victims to retell facts about their time when loved ones were not around.

After he hung up his phone, Jorge moved over to the room, peeked in to see the pregnant woman resting and gently knocked on the doorway of her hospital room.

“Mrs. Brooks? May I come in?” he asked politely. “I hate to do this now, especially after you’ve been through so much, but I need details about what happened to you and especially, who did it. We need to catch this person. Do you think you could answer some questions for me?”

That was Jorge, usually direct and to the point. Quickly though he cleared his throat as he stood a little awkwardly. The woman had been through a lot so he tried to ease into the conversation a little easier.

“Um, doctors tell me that you and your baby are doing well. Congratulations on that.” he tried to say. Smooth detective…real smooth.

Tarin had left the room, though Lee hoped that he would not be gone long. At least, she wasn't all that worried about him not being there anymore; she had much more energy now than she had had in a long time, and since DocProf had shown up and talked to the other doctors who had been taking care of her, Lee didn't think that there would be a problem with him getting back into the room. DocProf knew about her powers, after all, and Tarin being there for simply a couple of hours barely made up for the lack of energy she had had for months.

But, now that she was alone, Lee was left to literally twiddle her thumbs. The last time she had tried to get up and move around, something she desperately wanted to do despite the fact that she found her muscles were quite a bit weaker than she remembered them being, a passing nurse had come in and stopped that quite quickly.

At least she wasn't left in complete boredom for too long, as mere minutes after Tarin had left the room, the detective who had found her appeared at the door, asking if he could come in.

"Of course," Lee replied, pushing herself up into a fully sitting position. Hopefully the nurses, or DocProf, would come by and yell at her about that.

Detective Cervantes went on, saying that he needed to ask her some questions about what had happened to her, and she nodded. Of course he needed to ask questions, she was just glad that he had actually waited until she had energy again before he did so.

That wasn't the end of his preliminaries, though. The detective went on to congratulate her, and the baby, on doing well. Lee couldn't help but smile at that. "I guess it just goes to show that Tarin was right," she said. The fact that the baby was fine, even after all this time of her having so little energy, just went to prove that her powers wouldn't actually harm it. "Just don't tell Tarin I said that."

At that point, Lee took a deep breath and shifted on the bed so she was facing the detective more directly. "Where did you want to start?"

>> "I guess it just goes to show that Tarin was right…Just don't tell Tarin I said that."

“Confidentiality. He won’t hear it from me.”

Jorge smirked a little as he walked into the room and made his way over to the propped up hospital bed. Lee definitely did look better than she did when he first found her. He did have a vague memory that she had some sort of energy sapping ability. Tarin had told him something like that when they had first talked. He had made a note of it, but apparently in the heat of rescuing the woman, it was a fact that he had forgotten. He was thankfully at least that she did not just sap all his energy and run off. Though he was not sure if that were something she would have done in the first place.

Gently he pulled over a chair near her bed, took a seat and produced a small notepad and pen from his pocket. He did not like the idea of making her relive any memories about what happened but he needed to know.

>> "Where did you want to start?"

He cleared his throat, shifted his chair and began to look over the notes he had already taken so far. He wondered if she had any idea that that house had been inside of an abandoned warehouse. From inside it looked pretty convincing that they were outside in some kind of secluded suburb, but why could the criminal go through all that? Well besides the fact that the person was probably just out of their freakin’ gourd? Jorge shooed the question away and turned his attention back to Lee.

“Well, as unoriginal as it sounds, why don’t we start with a few basic facts?” he asked as he began to right a small note onto his notepad. “Can you give me a description of who did this to you? Any identifying features? Tattoos? Scars? Mutations? Take your time, okay?”

He needed Lee to think hard about this. The more she thought about it, the better chances she could come up with something completely insignificant that could be a massive help. He would sit ready and jot down whatever she told him. If they could get an APB out on this person by tonight, it increased their chances of catching them.

Lee smiled as the detective said her 'secret' was safe with him. Not that it was such a big deal, he would probably end up finding out that she felt this way anyway, if he did, she wanted to be the one to tell him that.

It didn't take much longer for the detective to come further into the room, bringing a chair over to sit next to the bed. Which meant that Lee would have been turning her head quite a bit just to be able to see him. So she shifted around on the bed again, untangling one of the blankets that was on there and wrapping it around her, being careful of the wires and tubes attached to her, as she turned to sit on the bed with her legs dangling off the side.

Basics? Yeah, Lee could do that. "He's an adapted," she started with. That was the most important part, at least to her. That was the reason she had been stuck in that place, that was the reason she hadn't been able to get away.

"When he took me, he put me in the back of a taxi," Lee continued. Her voice was controlled, normal, merely reporting the facts of what had happened to her. "I don't know if he did something to the doors, of if it was just child locks or something, but I couldn't open them.

"He's..." At this point, Lee paused for a moment, thinking of the details. "About 5'9", a little heavier set than Tarin, though none of it looked like muscle. He's fairly strong, though, he was able to carry me around easily enough. Dirty blond hair, neatly combed, at least most of the time. Light eyes, though I'm not exactly sure what colour they are.

"He called himself Anton," Lee finished up. "I'm not sure if that's actually his name, though."

>> "He's an adapted,"

Jorge wrote that word down and immediately circled it three or four times. Gemma had explained to him what that term meant before, especially since she was one. Apparently it had to do with certain people who could null people’s abilities. So far the only person the detective had met with that ability was Gemma so he thought she was making up the term. But upon hearing it from Lee as well, he nodded as he kept that word circled. It would make sense why Lee did not stop the man or leave after the kidnapping.

She could not. Against an…’Adapted’, she was a pregnant woman. In situations like that, acceptance and time biding were better than fighting.

>> "When he took me, he put me in the back of a taxi…I don't know if he did something to the doors, of if it was just child locks or something, but I couldn't open them…He's...About 5'9", a little heavier set than Tarin, though none of it looked like muscle. He's fairly strong, though, he was able to carry me around easily enough. Dirty blond hair, neatly combed, at least most of the time. Light eyes, though I'm not exactly sure what colour they are.”

“If you don’t mind, I’ll get the precinct to send over a sketch artist to work with you. It might be better to have something visual to go with this man. If we can get the information and a visual out on him tonight, it’ll increase our chances of finding him because he does something else stupid.” Jorge was trying to be reassuring as he wrote down all the details.

So far the man seemed pretty average to him. Nothing exceptional, just your average Joe. That made him all the more dangerous. It is easy for people to ignore the tattooed up man with the scarred face and multiple piercings, but the subtle ones were the ones to fear. Unfortunately their ability to blend simply made it too difficult for them to be noticed until it was far too late. Lee experienced that first hand, unfortunately.


>> "He called himself Anton…I'm not sure if that's actually his name, though."

“You never know, but I’ll make a note that it can be a possible alias,” he said as he wrote that down too. He finally took a breath as he watched Lee for a moment, tapping his pen against his notepad for a moment. It was then that he finally decided delved into the harder issue. “Mrs. Brooks, again, I apologize if this is difficult,” he said sympathetically. He did not want to seem like he was trying to treat the woman like fine china, only that he did not want to push her if she were not ready. “But…can you tell me, what happened to you during your time with him?”

Who could do this to a pregnant woman, was all he could think as he jotted down and circled important notes he had already taken.

It didn't occur to Lee until after she saw the detective writing notes down as she was speaking that he might not know what an adapted was. He was a cop, after all. But she didn't question it right away. Instead, Lee waited, and Detective Cervantes asked if she would be alright with him sending a sketch artist over to talk to her.

Lee nodded. "Yeah, that would be ok," she told him. "By the way, do you know what an adapted is?" After all, if he didn't, that would cause problems in explaining some things, such as her condition when he had first seen her versus now.

The detective made a note of the name she had given him, and she nodded. It might be his name, after all. Or it might be the name he wanted for that fantasy life he had been trying to create.

But then the detective apologized for what he was making hr go through, and Lee shook her head. "I'm a mutant, Detective Cervantes," she reminded him. I haven't had an easy life, and I'm sad to say that this is far from the worst thing I've had to go through. I survived the Camps during the Registration Act, and unless you saw them, or a war zone, you can't even imagine how bad they were. I'm not about to start freaking out or breaking down on you, so just go ahead and ask what you need to."

That said, Lee looked over at the detective as, a moment later, he was asking what had happened to her after she had been kidnapped. "Well, he's definitely crazy," Lee told him. "He seemed to think he was going to make the perfect family or something. He kept going on, when he was there, about how I would learn to love him, how he would take care of me from then on, stuff like that.

"He even seemed to have convinced himself that the baby was his, and he was so happy about that. A real nut job."

Lee paused, her gaze dropping to her hands momentarily before looking back up at the detective. "Though, I do have to admit that, all things considered, he did take care of me. I wouldn't have been malnourished if it wasn't for the fact that I hadn't had the energy to eat. He provided more than enough food for me, and I ate as much as I possibly could through sheer force of will, but as you know, it obviously wasn't enough."

Then Lee had a thought and she tilted her head slightly as she looked over at Detective Cervantes in the nearby chair. "Do you think you'd be able to encourage the doctors to release me sooner rather than later since I'm doing better now?" Well, it was worth a try.

>> "By the way, do you know what an adapted is?"

The detective had nodded once she asked her question. “Yes, I’ve met one before. And she explained to me, at least a little, about their abilities to nullify mutant abilities. It makes sense as to why you were able to be kept for so long. You have my sympathies.”

>> "I'm a mutant, Detective Cervantes…I haven't had an easy life, and I'm sad to say that this is far from the worst thing I've had to go through. I survived the Camps during the Registration Act, and unless you saw them, or a war zone, you can't even imagine how bad they were. I'm not about to start freaking out or breaking down on you, so just go ahead and ask what you need to."

Jorge did not say anything save for an understanding grunt. He had heard about the camps during the Registration Acts. He was one of the lucky ones who had been able to hide his mutation. He was extremely lucky, especially since after the very public display of his mutant powers back when he was 15 should have branded him with a huge M on his forehead the rest of his life. But, luck seemed to be on his side when he moved to Florida with his family. He kept his mutation hidden for several years, even after the times of registration ended. He had seen the aftermath from that move by the government and he counted himself as definitely lucky.

It was unfortunate though that Lee had to go through something like that , or any mutant for that fact. The detective could not imagine what it was like, save for images than made him tear up when he was younger. It was a horrible thing that one never thought they would see in the United States.

>> "Well, he's definitely crazy…He seemed to think he was going to make the perfect family or something. He kept going on, when he was there, about how I would learn to love him, how he would take care of me from then on, stuff like that. He even seemed to have convinced himself that the baby was his, and he was so happy about that. A real nut job…Though, I do have to admit that, all things considered, he did take care of me. I wouldn't have been malnourished if it wasn't for the fact that I hadn't had the energy to eat. He provided more than enough food for me, and I ate as much as I possibly could through sheer force of will, but as you know, it obviously wasn't enough."

Jorge was a little surprised by most of what Lee had said. In the process though he wrote down everything that seemed important or relevant to finding the man. Apparently this ‘Anton’ had quite the delusion worked up. He kidnapped this woman in order to make her fit in his fantasy of a perfect life. It did fit her prison after all: the house locked away from the eyes of the world, suspended in a time of family values and patriarchal leadership. The man had attempted to create his own personal life with a woman whom he did not know, but would make eventually love him. It would not have been the first time. In his experience and ready reports, many times people held against their wills, after time, will become to grow dependant on their captor. They will eventually form attachments to them and view them as people they could grow to care about. The idea was disturbing.

So apparently this man had kidnapped Lee, locked her up and attempted to make her pretty much dependent on everything he provided for her. But one thought nagged at Jorge. Was this the first time the man had ever done something like this? It seemed too perfect, the house, the room, the care and attention. Something like this takes practice. And if the man had indeed done this before…what happened to all his other ‘brides’?

“Well, Mrs. Brooks, he definitely does seem like a nutjob,” he said with a small nod and a smile. “At least I believe that is the technical term.” he jotted down another note and sighed as he looked up at her. “You know, it was probably your mutation and the thought of your husband and baby that kept you truly becoming dependant on him. Because of your lack of energy, you could not get into the mentality to truly depend on him. I’m sorry you had to go through that though.”

>> "Do you think you'd be able to encourage the doctors to release me sooner rather than later since I'm doing better now?"

He smirked and nodded his head gently. “I’ll see what I can do. Doctors tend to want to keep victims such as yourself under observation but maybe I can at least convince DocProf to convince the hospital to at least allow you to go home.” he smiled a bit reassuringly as he looked over his notes. “But Mrs. Brooks, I would at least like to keep a police detail on you. Just until we can learn of this man’s whereabouts. Now, he was not there when I showed up. Did he leave you alone often? Did he ever tell you where he would go on these excursions? Such as…when was the last time you saw him? Do you have any idea where he could be now?”

He had met an adapted before. And he knew what that meant to Lee with her powers. At least that helped things, meant she didn't have to explain it all to him.

After she explained about how this wasn't the worst thing she had been through, about how she had survived the Camps, the detective didn't say anything. What was there he really could say about it? At least, again, he seemed to understand. That was really all she could hope for, wasn't it?

She liked this guy, she really did, Lee decided when Detective Cervantes said he would see what he could do about getting her discharged from the hospital sooner rather than later.

"Thanks," Lee said with a small smile. It was really the most that she could hope for.

The smile disappeared when the detective continued speaking, though, the questioning coming back around to the man who had kidnapped her again. Frowning, Lee's eyes dropped down to her hands in her lap. "I honestly don't know," she told him with a slight shake of her head. "Time lost all meaning, I honestly couldn't tell how much time was passing, even when he was there, never mind between when he showed up. Some times, it felt like he was gone for maybe an hour, some times it was as though he was gone for days. I don't know if he actually was, or if it just seemed that way.

"I'm guessing that he went to work for most of the time that he was gone," Lee continued with a small shrug. "He would talk about his day, trying to get me to talk with him, but he never mentioned where he works. Just called it 'the office'."

>> "I honestly don't know…Time lost all meaning, I honestly couldn't tell how much time was passing, even when he was there, never mind between when he showed up. Sometimes, it felt like he was gone for maybe an hour, some times it was as though he was gone for days. I don't know if he actually was, or if it just seemed that way. I'm guessing that he went to work for most of the time that he was gone…He would talk about his day, trying to get me to talk with him, but he never mentioned where he works. Just called it 'the office'."

Loss of time? Jorge knew what that meant, the man had been trying to break her. Unfortunately he read a lot of everything and one these books consisted of methods that governments have used in order to break P-O-W’s and other victims. Taking away time meant the person had nothing to focus on, nothing really to hold onto hope with. They could not count the minutes, hours, with no sense of time, eventually they loss sense of self. Jorge had to feel for young woman here. He had no idea what this could have meant for her. Sitting in a room by herself with no idea whether it were really day or night, but have been harsh.

But she did say she had been through harder times. With mention of the camps…he had to believe her.

“Office, could mean any number of things. Either he really has a job at one, or that’s just continuing the fantasy he tried to play out with you.” Jorge was more speaking to himself as he jotted this last bit down.

As he looked over his notes he got pretty much everything useful: alias, description, her experience in the house. There really was little more that he could do for her other than promise to get the APB out on this maniac and hopefully catch him. He sighed thoughtfully as he read over the notes, trying to figure some pattern, something that could catch the man. Unfortunately, except for living out his fantasy of having the perfect family, the man was purely average.

He looked up and after he reassuring nod. “Thank you, Mrs. Brooks. You did well. I’ll get that sketch artist in here and I’ll call this information in. We’ll catch this guy, okay?” he nodded as he began to stand. He did not like just abandoning her but she had her husband and DocProf around. As he turned to leaned he paused as he turned his attention back onto her with a gentle smile. “Is there anything I can get you, while you wait for your husband? Besides convincing DocProf to let you off early?”

The detective mentioned that Anton's mentioning of an office could have simply been playing into his delusion of creating a family with her. Lee nodded, that did make sense. And by the time that he had really started talking to her about that sort of thing, she had had far too little energy to try and figure out whether what he was telling her was true or not.

But apparently, that was all Detective Cervantes thought that she could help with at that time, as he was getting up out of his chair, saying he'd send over the sketch artist. Lee nodded, she'd try.

Just before the man left the room, he turned back, asking if there was anything that he could get for her. Lee shook her head. "If you can help speed up my release, that's really all I can ask for," she told him. She didn't mention the fact that she didn't need him to get her anything since at that moment Tarin was working to try and smuggle some food in for her.

It was only as the detective had turned to go a second time that Lee spoke again. "Wolfe," she said, sitting straighter on the bed. "I don't know if it's a first or a last name, but at one point he said his boss' name was Wolfe."

>> "If you can help speed up my release, that's really all I can ask for,"

Jorge nodded in response. He definitely liked this woman. She survived this horrible ordeal, and many more otherwise, so he would definitely do his best to get her out of here early. Unfortunately not everyone comes out of a situation like that with as good of a disposition as Lee did. He had to commend her strength and fortitude. Plus, with DocProf around, he knew that the two of them combined should at least be able to get Lee home to spend bed rest with her husband. That would indeed help her the most.

“I’ll do my best, I promise.” he said reassuring and continued out.

But just as he reached the door, he heard Lee straighten up and reveal another detail about her captivity.

>> "Wolfe…I don't know if it's a first or a last name, but at one point he said his boss' name was Wolfe."

Jorge paused as he glanced back into the room. In a quick motion he pulled out his notepad and pen again. He noted the name “Wolfe” as either another possible clue or accomplice. It was still not a lot to go on finding whoever this person “Anton” was, but it was at least a start. Everything has to start somewhere after all and this bit of information could be important to find out who had done this to her.

He nodded as he looked over the name once more and flipped his notepad closed again. “I’ll look into it. Could have a hundred connotations, but…one of them will lead us to your kidnapper. Thank you for your help Mrs. Brooks.” he said as he walked back into her room. He reached into his coat pocket and fished around until he found his little grouping of contact cards. He then pulled one up and left it on her small tray next to her hospital bed. “This is my contact card. Your husband already has one, but here’s another, just in case. You remember anything else or you have any other emergencies, you or your husband can call me any time, okay?” he said with a nod. “Okay, I’m going to see what I can do about getting you out of here, okay? I’ll be outside that door if you need anything else.”

A turn on his heels and Jorge was out the door, searching down the doctors assigned to Lee, as well as DocProf. The woman definitely was looking better, so the least he could do was get her to the familiarity of her own home with her husband. This was a strange day and a very strange case…one that seemed unlikely to be close to over.

Lee knew that it might not really help, that her telling the detective that she remembered Anton calling his boss 'Wolfe' once might not help find the guy, but she had to try, had to tell the man since she remembered it.

The problem was that so many of her memories of her time stuck there had an almost dream-like quality to them. After all, how could one remember things with perfect clarity when they barely had the energy to be conscious?

But Detective Cervantes was saying that he would look into it, that that piece of information she had given him might help. And then he was making his way back into the room, placing a card on the little table next to her bed. Telling her to call if she or Tarin had any other emergencies.

To be honest, Lee was a little shocked. Here was a cop who actually cared, and still did after he found out that she was a mutant. Mind you, it was really only surprising in comparison to Rupert. Jacen had been rather considerate.

Oh well, not important here. What was important was that the Detective said that he was going to go and see what he could do to speed up her release. Giving him a smile, and nodding her understanding that he'd just be outside the door, Lee waiting for him to leave. Then she was looking around the room, over at the door she knew led to the washroom, and at the massive stand her IV was attached to. Then, from the IV stand, following the cord to where it attached to the wall, and back to the bathroom door.

Hopping off the bed, trying to be quiet since she knew the detective wasn't going to be far off, Lee was a little surprised at just how wobbly her legs felt. Bracing herself on the edge of the bed with her hand, she got her balance back, then went over to unplug the IV, holding her breath as she hoped there would be no alarm or anything.

Straightening up, Lee had to grab the IV to help keep her balance, not simply to move it as she slowly made her way to the bathroom. She had energy again, so she hadn't exactly expected her muscles to be this weak, though it was probably to be expected after how little she had done after her kidnapping.

But God! She couldn't help but think as she slowly walked across the cold floor to the bathroom. It felt damn good to be able to move on her own again. Now if only Tarin would hurry up and get back there with some food.