Sun glinted off of the supervising doctor's sun glasses. His children were at play. This had been a good idea. He scanned through the milling crowd of orderlies and patients and leaned back against his bench, enjoying the sunlight. It was a good day to be outside.

Jane Doe, brown haired and vacant, sat in the plush summer grass by herself. The blades of grass prickled through her light blue scrubs. Something was bothering her, but she just couldn't put her finger on it. She twirled the medical bracelet around her wrist, wishing for maybe the hundredth time since she could remember that the marks made sense.

Something was broken in her head. That's why she was here in the first place. Her heart told her that she was different, better somehow. Nobody had to wipe drool from her chin or remind her that she was no Elvis.

She watched a woman in her fifties roll a bright red ball back and forth with an orderly. If the 50-something had been dressed in a suit with padded shoulders, Jane could easily imagine her as a high powered executive or a ranking government official. Something was broken in that woman's brain too.

The ex-agent peeled off her cheap shoes and socks and wiggled her toes into the sun-soaked grass. There wasn't much left at this point, but little flecks of red toe nail polish caught the sunlight too. This was right. The red belonged with the green. Now all she had to do was wait. What she was waiting for, she didn't know. Maybe she would know it when she saw it?

Lucas’ daily exercise regime was hard but he couldn’t argue with results. It had only been three weeks under his new coach’s tutelage and the effects were starting to become apparent. McMillan was a gruelling task master but he knew how to rebuild a man that had fallen apart. The young man was running daily now and could put in 6 or 7 miles before breakfast without complaint. He was even starting to enjoy the time as it had become the rare part of his day where he could reflect. A month earlier, the thought of running at all seemed like torture but now the young man looked forward it.

The first week was the hardest. Time on the street had weakened Lucas physically and mentally. His body had started to fade away as his mind refused to accept the pit of self-pity it hid in was reality. He had given up and without realizing it, was throwing his life away. With time, he would have fallen to some vice or negative influence as was the standard for most people who left society behind. But he was one of the lucky ones. Fate intervened before any of that could happen. A young woman had taken pity on him and showed him his own weakness by sharing her strength with him. It was a hard lesson and almost pushed him farther over the edge. By another lucky chance, his coach found him then and Lucas was getting the help he desperately needed.

McMillan’s style of help wasn’t soft and snugly. He didn’t coddle or talk about feelings. It wasn’t in him. The old man was built from a mould long broken and believed a person was responsible for their own demons. The coach knew that purpose could exorcise the worst of them though and used his gift for giving that direction to others.
The old man had an inner light that refused to burn out and he had lifted Lucas back up, giving him a chance to save himself.

Lucas’ body resisted the punishment at first and the comfort of a quiet alley seemed like it might not be so bad but the coach refused to give the young man a chance to fall again. He pushed him harder then Lucas had been pushed before, forcing him into a brutal routine of exercise to burn off the old ways and remove any time for doubt or contemplation. At the end of each day, Lucas would return to his little room in the basement of McMillan’s Gym and pass out instantly from exhaustion, only to be awoken at 4:30 the next morning to start it all again. Time and days blurred together as the body desperately tried to cope with the shock of its new way of life before giving up, accepting the change and moving on.

The old man knew what he was doing and had probably done it before. He was showing him he cared, not with hugs and love but by investing in the young man’s future. Now, more than three weeks into training, Lucas knew how lucky he really was to have this opportunity and pushed himself as hard as he could so that he wouldn’t let the man down.

Putting one foot in front of the other, Lucas jogged along the East River Bikeway as he did every day, making his way to Battery Park. The woman, Noel, had stood him up for their date a few weeks back but the young man still ran through the park every day. It wasn’t a huge surprise she hadn’t come. The young man was a homeless wreck and really had nothing to offer anyone but an anchor to pull them down with him. By taking pity on him that day and sharing a bit of who she was, she had probably saved his life. It was the kick the young man needed to dust himself off and he was thankful she had shown him another possibility.

The first few times he had run along the harbour front, Lucas had hoped to see Noel but now it was just part of his routine. The park had become a reminder of the depths to which he had fallen and he used it to help fuel the fire of the athlete growing inside. It was a daily lesson of what could happen if he lost track of his goals or himself again.

Arriving at the park, he continued to run along the path, scanning the water and admiring the way the sun reflected off its surface. There was a lot of beauty in New York if you got to know the city and Lucas was glad he had made the decision to move here despite the troubles that he had had. The city was becoming his home and he was happy with his new life.

Looking to his right, Lucas noticed a group of adults playing in the grass. Most of them were dressed in baggy light blue pants and shirts but a few, who seemed to be supervisors, wore white. It seemed to be some kind of outing and it reminded the young man of the excursions he used to share with his Grandmother when she was back in the home in Florida. The memories were both sweet and sad. He missed her deeply and still felt her loss strongly….and probably always would. He turned off the paved path and ran across the grass so he could sit on a nearby bench and watch, just to reminisce a minute and have a drink from his water bottle before continuing on.

One of the orderlies sat on the right side of the park bench, idly surveying his flock with a smug look on his face. Sitting down beside him, Lucas prepared to start up some meaningless conversation about the weather when his eyes fell upon the woman sitting in the grass a little ways away. Her long brown hair fell haphazardly about her shoulders as she looked down at red flecked toes that wiggled in the grass. She played with a bracelet around her wrist and then looked up across the lawn to where a nurse and patient were throwing a large ball between them. Lucas saw the scar on her left cheek and the memory of lying in a hotel room with an arm around her slight frame came rushing in.

Standing up, Lucas quickly crossed the grass between them and kneeled down beside her, ignoring the rest of the world around them. Noel’s eyes seemed glassy and distant. The amazing woman Lucas had been attracted to three weeks before had been flushed away by a steady administration of medication. Her light blue smock bore a black ink stamp that said “Greenwich House Mental Care Facility” over her left breast. She was nothing but a husk, a shell of her former self.

His fingers shook as his hand tried to help straighten her wild hair as gently as it could. He heard his voice crack slightly as he spoke to her softly, as if she would break when hearing his words if he wasn’t careful. “Hey Noel, it’s me, Lucas. How you been?” He felt instantly stupid having said it.

A young man sat next to him and he opened his mouth to tell him that this was a private function. It didn't matter. As soon as the boy had sat down, he got back up. Maybe he realized he was intruding.

The man's shadow preceded him. Jane glanced up to see what was blocking the sun from making sparkles on her toes. She smiled at him in the way she would smile at a hot dog vendor. It was nothing more than politeness... until he knelt down to talk to her. Well, more than that. He smoothed her hair too.

Jane ran her fingers through her hair after he tried to smooth her tangles like he had done it wrong or maybe to comb the feeling away. It might have been strange, but she did feel sorry for him. He looked kind of shaken so she tried to take his question seriously.

"I'm okay. Just waiting." She didn't try to tell him why. For some reason she felt like she had to whisper. Maybe because he had spoken so quietly. "Are you okay?" She put her hand on his forearm, a casual gesture from one stranger to another.

"Jane?"

She craned her neck toward the sound, trained to respond to a new name. An orderly clapped his hand down hard on the poor guy's shoulder. Jane hadn't noticed him approaching and now that he was here, she pulled her hand back.

"He called me Noel. Didn't I tell you my name is Noel?"

The hand tightened, she could see it bunch up Lucas' clothes near his neck. "Do you two know each other?"

Jane looked at him, at the bow of his lips and the close cropped hair. The only thing she could think of was the color yellow in her art class. Her neighbor had painted a big blob of yellow speckled with white and black. She curled her toes in the grass and shook her head side to side.

Lucas felt the hand as it grabbed hold of his shoulder firmly. “Do you know each other?” The voice asked from behind him.

Noel looked at Lucas like a lost child as she examined him for something she would recognize. Not finding it, she became distracted and started shaking her head back and forth and returned to playing with her toes in the grass.

This all felt very wrong. They had drugged Noel to the point where she was almost unrecognisable. She was a mutant, like Lucas was, not a mental case. They both suffered from a genetic accident which doomed them to be different. How could these people help her if they didn’t understand that basic concept? The young woman’s powers were more of a curse than a blessing. Anyone who didn’t have to face that everyday couldn’t possibly understand.

Over the years, Noel had created a system so she could thrive in everyday life. Someone had taken that away. Her map, her ankle pouch, her cryptic notes; all of them were essential to her well being....and all of them were gone. Someone had swept her under the rug, stealing the woman’s identify in the process.

Lucas felt rage begin to boil up from deep down within him and he clenched his teeth together to master it. He wanted to lash out. He wanted to pummel the man that held his sweater. The thought of being separate from humanity had never crossed the young mutant’s mind until now but his anger fuelled the concept quickly. A mutant would never have done this to Noel. Only humanity could be so evil.

Slowly, Lucas rose back up to his feet and turned to face the man. He saw his own anger reflected back at him in the mirrored sun glasses on the orderly’s face. The man took a step back, releasing the cloth of Lucas’ hoodie as he suddenly understood the danger of antagonizing further.

“Yes, we know each other.” Lucas answered, his voice having an eerie calm to his ears. “We met a few weeks back. Her name is Noel Gage...and she’s my...friend.”

“Did you both know each other long?” The man asked cautiously, trying to get an idea of the stranger in front of him.

“Long enough that I know that keeping her like this is cruel and unwarranted.” Lucas replied. The anger in his face began to cool but it still remained on the inside, ready to explode. This human wasn’t responsible. He was a glorified babysitter. An imbecile, who was charged with holding the leashes of a pack of drooling mental midgets. Someone else had ordered this treatment. They were the ones Lucas was very eager to meet.

“When your little field trip is over, I am coming back with you.” Lucas said as he turned back around and knelt beside Noel again. “Until that time, leave us alone.”

The orderly hesitated for a moment and stood behind Lucas in the grass, unsure of what to do. His cowardice finally won and he went back to the bench to watch from a safer distance. Lucas didn’t care what the man did anymore. Noel needed him. He smiled slightly, thinking of how she would hate to hear him say it but it was true. The beautiful woman before him had saved his life a month ago. Lucas would do whatever he could to return the favour.

Noel tilted her head to the side to see the orderly's face while Lucas talked to him. He did not look happy at being told off, but he went. It was also interesting to hear what Lucas actually had to say.

He knew her. He knew her before... this. She didn't remember before this. Somehow that idea was really exciting. He was her connection! Though she didn't really appreciate how he was talking to the man.

Jane, Noel it didn't really matter... She wasn't sure who she was, but she did stand up and put a hand on Lucas' arm. "I don't have anywhere else to go and they've been helping me." Her tone told him to not be so hard on them. They had helped her in her hour of need. Now that she had re-learned a couple things she was sort of feeling things out for herself again. Sure they wanted information from her but that was mostly secondary to her recovery... at least that's what it sounded like.

"Please?" She had a million questions to ask him, but this was an important one. There was no need for two groups of people who only wanted to help to butt heads.

Well. There was one way to passive aggressively shut this down. The orderly in charge started the rest of those in charge packing up. Rubber balls went away, shoes went back on feet, they started to corral the rest of the patients into a group. They wouldn't give Noel and Lucas long together unsupervised. They needed to control this situation.

"Jane?" She peeked around a tree to see that he other patients were starting back for the bus.

"I need to wait here." Realizing that once again she had touched Lucas, Noel... Jane... retracted her hand. "I made it to the park and I need to wait." She said the last part to her bare toes.

It seemed to be time to go. The orderly was ending the field trip early thanks to Lucas’ intervention in the normal routine. This worked out fine for the young man but Noel had reservations. He wanted to see the doctors that were treating her so he could figure out a way to get her back. Unfortunately, now Noel didn’t seem to want to leave as she preferred to wait here for something. The irony being Lucas was probably that something. Battery Park had been the young man’s idea. The chances that Noel had another appointment in the same place were remote. Now that he had found her here there was no reason left for her to stay that he could think of.

Despite everything that had happened, Noel had somehow retained the knowledge that she had to be here to see Lucas again. Was it possible that he had been mistaken and the attraction between the pair was mutual? There was hope to be found in that notion. The thought was both uplifting and deflating however since Noel couldn’t remember who the young man in front of her was.

Trying to be calm so as not to upset her further, Lucas tried to explain his thoughts.

“Noel, we were supposed to meet each other here a few weeks ago in this park. Now that I am here, I don’t think you have to wait anymore.”

Taking her hand in his, he tried to gently lead her towards the small bus were the other patients were loading up, continuing to attempt to jog the woman’s memory as they walked.

“This was going to be our second date. We met when you accidentally stepped in front of a taxi. We ended up spending the night together in a hotel. Do you remember?”

The words were true but sounded crazy as they left Lucas’s lips. If the doctors were to learn that Noel had stepped in front of a cab, they would likely assume it related to her condition or was a suicide attempt. If they drew either conclusion, getting the woman out and free would be much more difficult. But what could he say to convince them that she was not dangerous to herself or others? How much did he really know about her? They had only spent a day together but in that time Lucas felt he had grown to understand her a little. However, she was still very much a mystery to him. He had thought he understood her that night only to be turned around the next morning as she left. Which was the real woman and which was an illusion? If he wasn’t sure, how was he to explain it to a psychiatrist? Was he even making the right decision by trying to help her? This had all the signs of ending very badly.

In the end, Lucas decided to go with his instincts. It was too late for second guessing now. They were almost at the bus so Lucas would see it through. No matter who the woman beside him was, she deserved better than to be shut away from the world. Lucas would do whatever he could to help her if she would let him.

Years with his grandmother had taught Lucas that if Noel was going to come back to herself, it would be some small tidbit of information that would trigger her return. Conversation might suffice but the best chance of success was always physical. Her personal effects could be the first step to that recovery. Long term memories related to them and having something physical to put in her hands was infinitely better than words alone. Lucas needed to get his hands on those items. The system with the map and ankle pouch far predated his arrival in Noel’s life. The family photo might be another clue that could be used. Their familiarity was the best bet to help the woman find herself again. To get the items, Lucas would need to speak directly with the doctors responsible for Noel’s treatment. They would likely have her things in storage somewhere and wouldn’t give them out to anyone but family but he had to try.

“I would like to talk to your doctor for a bit about how we are going to get you better. Do you want to come back to the hospital with me while I do that?” He asked as they both finished crossing the lawn and stood in line to board the bus.

She swung their hands back and forth as they walked. Not a lot of what he said made sense, but that was probably due to a lack of context. She shook her head to answer his question. "What's a taxi?" A second date and a hotel, she had no problem identifying. Jane knew enough to know that she would not have gone to a hotel with a strange man on a first date. That was bad behavior. Maybe he had her mistaken for someone else?

"Jane, where are your shoes?"

She looked down, surprised. Well, if she had thought about it she wouldn't have been surprised. The cheap white shoes were still in the grass somewhere. "I wanted to see my toes. The red reminds me of the park." She talked as much to her toes as to the orderly. Lucas said that she didn't have to wait anymore, but she wasn't so sure about that. The red on her toes made her think of the park. The park made her want to stay and wait. She was waiting for something to do with yellow.

The orderly must have rolled his eyes behind his sunglasses. Jane saw his eyebrows go up and back down out of sight again. "I'll get them. Stay here."

"Do you like yellow, Lucas?" It was the first time that she had said his name for herself and it resonated in her head like someone had struck a bell. Jane had asked Lucas because he seemed like a nice man and because maybe he knew why she kept thinking about things that were yellow like yellow paint on toes. She had to let go of his hand to touch her head. But touching her head wasn't enough. Both her hands smoothed her hair back from her face before gripping her skull. The brunette bent in half before bending her knees to stay in a squat.

Ow. The medicine must have started to wear off because the headaches were back. Ow. There were triggers to her migraines that they hadn't quite pointed yet. She didn't want to hurt, but she had to try it again. "Lucas?" She opened her eyes a squint and caught sight of his running shoes. Could it-? Could he-? She grabbed at his shoe laces with sudden ferocity so that she could take his shoes off.

The orderly returning with her shoes shouted in alarm, dropped her shoes and tried to pull her off of him. He clearly thought she was attacking his feet. But she had to know!

“It’s ok!” Lucas yelled out at the orderly that was trying to subdue Noel. “Let her go! She isn’t trying to hurt me. She just wants to see my feet.”

The man in white reluctantly released the woman and Noel returned to tug at Lucas’ shoe laces immediately. The orderly seemed to have accepted the role of supervisor after Lucas had asked him to back off but stood nearby, reluctantly allowing things to continue while watching for a reason to step in again.

Lucas lowered himself down and sat in the grass in front of Noel, watching her thin fingers yanking in vain at the rough strings like a child trying to pull a large toy through a small hole. Attempting to keep his voice as soothing as he could, he started to talk to her again.

“I like yellow fine. I especially liked the yellow you painted on my toes that night. It was a fun color.”

Reaching down towards his shoes, he took each of Noel’s hands firmly and lifted them up onto his knees and held them there. Lucas waited for her to calm down for a moment before continuing. When her breathing slowed to a normal pace and she seemed less panicked, he let his hand lift her chin as he had done in the past so he could see her face. Her look was full of confusion and desperation, trying to comprehend her situation. Those hazel eyes bore into Lucas, like she was begging for an answer that would make sense of it all. Smilling gently at her, he continued on.

“We stayed up that night painting each others toes. You painted mine yellow and I…” Lucas nodded his head towards Noel’s small, feminine feet and released her chin so she could turn her head. She followed his look for a moment before returning her gaze to Lucas’ shoes, sitting between them in the grass. “I painted yours a sparkly red.”

He untied the lace on his left shoe and pulled it free, revealing the sock inside. Noel had remembered something of that night. His feet could have been the trigger she needed, if only…

“We watched an old black and white movie while we snuggled on the bed and I told you about my life in Florida while I was growing up. We planned another date to meet here, in this park, after a week had passed.”

The woman stared, unblinking, as Lucas’ fingers curled under the band of the sock and pulled it off his foot. The truth that should have been found in those five little digits disappointed. The skin still blushed a light pink from the heat generated during the man’s morning run but his toes were clean and bare, no hint of yellow polish upon the nails’ surfaces could be seen.

“That was over a month ago.”

The polish was long gone now. When Noel hadn’t arrived for their date, Lucas didn’t see a reason to keep up the decoration on his feet. He had left it for a little while as a reminder of the woman he had met, but eventually, he concluded that there was no chance they would see each other again. It seemed pointless to keep the polish then and he had removed what hadn’t chipped away with some acetone and a brush. Seeing Noel staring down at his feet in an attempt to find something she would recognize made him regret that decision now.

She was going to get his shoes off whether he was standing or not. Jane pulled, lifted and twisted. Anything that might let her get to his toes. The orderly on her back wrestled to keep an arm under his control before Lucas protested and he let go. Encouraged, Jane tugged and pulled harder and more desperately. Was there any truth to her memory?

Lucas collected her hands. They shook against his, but she tried to listen to what he was saying. As if from a movie reel, she saw her own face lit up with laughter, two people curled on a beige bed mounded with pillows painting each other's toe nails.

Jane shook her head and it felt like her brain sloshed around inside her skull. Her heart pumped thickly and slowly fighting to keep up with her mind's need through layers of pharmaceuticals. Too much emotion triggered headaches. Headaches triggered the forgetting.

Florida? Black and white movies? She breathed out a shuddering breath and put her fingers to her mouth, most of the nails were still bandaged to keep her from chewing them off. The cloth wrappings felt strange against her teeth.

And then the sock came off.

There was nothing there.

A month?

But there was nothing there.

At all.

She looked at her toes and then up to Lucas, confused. Her red sparkly paint was still there. The world shifted violently back and forth as her eyes began to shake.

Realizing that he had left the actual hazard free, the orderly clamped both hands over Jane Doe's eyes and held on for dear life.

Her skull was splitting. She was cut off from even looking. Another pair of hands wrestled with her arms until somehow both arms were pinned together behind her back at the wrists. If Lucas tried to interfere, there was an orderly waiting to keep him away. This was for the good of them all.

Jane writhed, beyond words. Her back arched pushing her whole body out and away before fighting with what little mobility was left to her. Her head hurt! She could feel her eyes drumming back and forth in her skull. The power didn't work if she didn't have another pair of eyes to look into. They were doing her a favor by covering her eyes. They were saving the few memories she had left.

"I haven't seen her this bad since she first came in!" One orderly commented to another before grunting. A flailing elbow caught him in the gut.

Eventually, Jane ran out of gas. Her heart could only keep up for so long. Until then it was like reeling in a marlin from the depths of the ocean.

Jane's cheek ended up against the grass. With each huffing breath she smelled the dirt and sunshine that they were leaving behind.

"I…" It took time for the words to form. She was angry and confused and would much rather have fought a lion than begged for anything. "I have to wait here." Her protest sounded pathetic even to her own ears. She was supposed to wait. That had been the only thing she had been absolutely sure about. Get to the park and wait. Someone with yellow toes would come to get her. Lucas did not have yellow toes.

A knee pressed between her shoulder blades pressing her hard against the ground and the sweaty hands that covered her eyes pulled away. She caught a glimpse of her discarded white tennis shoes and socks some feet away before cloth slithered around her head and knotted at the back. Once blindfolded, they let her go.

Jane lay still against the grass even after all the wrestling was done. What did the paint color even mean? She inhaled to ask and ended up sucking in dirt. Jane coughed, each sound a thunder clap in her head.

The head orderly pounced suddenly, like a cat upon a wounded mouse. He threw his hands around Noel’s eyes and jerked her back by her head, away from Lucas. Another orderly, this one an overly muscular red headed woman, jumped in too, pinning Noel’s hands behind her back as she struggled like a wild animal in a trap.

The shock from the sudden attack evaporated almost instantly and Lucas’ muscle flexed and pushed him into action. He lunged forward, intent on pulling both the staff off Noel but before he could help her, he was tackled from the side by a third orderly he hadn’t noticed in the confusion. The man’s arms were like two dark skinned tree trunks wrapping Lucas tightly before driving him hard into the turf. Air pushed out of Lucas’ lungs and he fought for breath as those humongous arms constricted his chest further and the man’s weight bore down upon him. He struggled in vain but was held fast. All he could do was watch.

"I haven't seen her this bad since she first came in!" the man holding Noel’s eyes grunted to his colleague as they struggled to subdue her.

The head orderly didn’t realize the significance of what he said but it wasn’t lost on Lucas. Noel was a fighter. If she had given them trouble when she was committed then it was because they had locked her up against her will. This shook the young man’s mind into action and it put together a few more of the missing pieces. A chill went down his spine as another truth came to him while he struggled for freedom.

“You know.” Lucas wheezed with surprise, his thought slipping out of his mouth accidentally.

The head nurse had covered Noel’s eyes. His first thought was not to bind her or protect anyone; it was to hide those soulful, hazel eyes. They knew she was a mutant. They weren’t drugging Noel to help her get better; they were drugging her to subdue her powers. These people had medicated the woman to keep her docile and safe while they put her in some deep dark hole to be forgotten. Taking a scan of the staff around him, he confirmed his suspicion instantly. Lucas couldn’t believe he had missed it as it seemed crystal clear now. It wasn’t a particularly sunny day but all three of them had been wearing mirrored glasses. It was not UV or fashion that concerned them. They wore the glasses for protection from Noel. When the woman had used her powers a month ago, her eyes had almost seemed to vibrate before Lucas’ memory got turned to salad. It made sense. Noel’s powers required eye contact and all of them had taken precautions.

Pulling out a piece of cloth, the two orderlies bound Noel’s eyes and dropped her back down on the grass roughly. She was exhausted from the battle and didn’t put up any resistance to the treatment anymore. She panted heavily and tried to speak in between her laboured breaths. “I… I have to wait here." She pleaded softly, coughing on some dirt. For a moment, Lucas saw her will to fight broken as she lay prone on the lawn before him.

“But why?” Lucas wondered. Why go through all the trouble? Was Noel so dangerous that they had to lock her up and throw away the key? She had been a federal officer, out in the field serving her country before. What had changed? Something still didn’t make sense.

The large black man on top of Lucas noticed the struggling of his victim had stopped and leaned his head to the young mutant’s ear. The orderly’s deep baritone voice had a hint of sadism buried deep inside it. “If yo done fight’n, I’se can let you up. Yo gonna be good now m’ man?”

The question sounded more like an invitation for more punishment than a truce. The burly orderly had enjoyed blindsiding Lucas and revelled in the power he felt. It was as if he was daring the young man underneath him to start to struggle again, but now wasn’t the time. Lucas needed to play it cool. His time would come. There were too many unknowns and he was at an obvious disadvantage.

“Sorry I got carried away.” He lied to the large man lying across his back. “I thought you guys were hurting her. I understand you are just trying to help now. You can let me up”

Putting his elbow into the small of Lucas’ back, the dark skinned orderly pushed himself to his feet and Lucas winced at the pressure and weight. When the large man finished standing, he put his hands up as if to apologies but his sinister smile showed his true feelings. This man enjoyed hurting people. It was in his nature.

Sitting up, Lucas purposely ignored the brute and looked over to check on Noel. She seemed fine physically but was just lying prone, her face still done in the grass as she coughed out air and dirt. He crawled over to her and rolled the woman onto her side so her breathing would be unobstructed.

“You hurt?” He asked her as he examined the woman more closely. She seemed relatively unscathed. In one sense it was disappointing. If she had been hurt, it would have given him a chance to use his powers. It was possible the sensation of his healing her would trigger a buried memory but he couldn’t injure her for that purpose alone of course. Things were not that desperate yet.

Lucas’ sock and shoe sailed over and landed beside him as the bulky orderly tossed it to remind the young man of his existence and taunt him further. Paying no mind, Lucas put the clothing back on while sitting beside the woman in the grass. Once complete, he looked to the head orderly, ignoring the goon that was trying to antagonize him.

“Let’s get going guys. Don’t want to keep the good doctor waiting.”

Lucas said something that made the corners of Jane's mouth turn down. Ugh. There must have been something more than just dirt that she was coughing up, that flavor was foul. She coughed more and hands helped her roll onto her side. Of course they wouldn't let her stay here. They would make her go back. Lucas, even, wanted her to go back.

"M'fine." She grunted as answer.

He had seemed like he was on her side even if he wasn't the one she was waiting for. His talk of seeing the doctor served as a stark reminder that no one was on her side. No one but herself. She waited until her headache settled into a dull throb before sitting up. Someone was already shoving shoes on her feet when her fingers probed the edges of the blindfold.

A hand swatted hers. "Leave it." The voice was a soothing contralto that still managed to crack like a whip. The woman's voice. So presumably it was the woman who helped Jane to her feet and find a seat on the bus.

She sliiid until her head hit the bus window and stayed there until the bus was moving. Once they were moving she tugged her blindfold down and cut her eyes at the seat next to her. Lucas, not the red headed woman sat next to her. "Do you really know me?" Jane felt stupid asking, but she still asked. "You didn't... forget?"

The bus slowed to a stop and they barked for her to put the blindfold back on. Jane shimmied the cloth back up with only the least bit of irritation and put her hand back in Lucas' with all the trust of a child. These people were her whole frame of reference for the world. They led her every day, blindfolded or not, in everything she did. It was at their whim that she woke up in the morning and by their clock that she went to bed every night. She was entirely dependent on the system. They had taken the tools that helped her stay independent as evidence.

Lucas couldn’t help but watch Noel as the bus made its way through the streets of Manhattan. Her head bounced against the glass whenever the vehicle jostled but she didn’t seem to care. Sitting beside him in the chair with her blindfold on seemed to be all she could do. Noel had been so strong and fearless when they had met the first time. It made the young man sad to see her this way now.

The bus took another turn and helped Noel back into a sitting position. This time, rather than fall back and bang against the window again, she kept herself upright and turned her head in his direction. Her slender fingers inched up and pulled the blindfold down and she peaked over at Lucas like a child playing peek-a-boo.

“Do you really know me?” She asked him. “You didn’t... forget?”

Leaning in so only she could hear him, Lucas answered her question with a smile. “I didn’t forget. You’re unforgettable.”

Old breaks made a squealing noise as the bus began to slow and stop before an older brown bricked building. It had a high arched door and across its rounded frame the words “Greenwich House Mental Care Facility” could be seen in bold white letters. The three story hospital blocked out the sun and left the street in shadow. It was as if someone had plucked the image straight out of a Stephen King novel.

The stern red headed woman in the seat behind them snapped abruptly. “Blindfold on!”

Noel quickly pulled it back, afraid of the phantom punishment for being disobedient. With blindfold in place, she dropped her hand down and found Lucas’. It was nice to hold that hand again.

They were escorted off the bus and into a large and sterile entry room with a huge oak counter decorating the middle. The orderlies began the process of checking all the patients back in and separating them out to travel to their respective floors.

Lucas squeezed Noel’s hand and brought her with him as he went to talk to the head orderly about seeing the doctor only to be intercepted by the stern, red haired woman. “She needs to come with me. You will be able to see her after you meet with Doctor Peterson.”

He didn’t want to let her go but didn’t have much choice. Noel was still under their care and starting an argument now would not make the task at hand any easier. “I won’t be gone long. I just have to take care of this and then I will come and see you.” On impulse, he leaned in and placed his lips upon the blindfolded woman’s forehead and kissed her gently before letting go of her hand to let the nurse lead Noel back into the facility.

He wouldn't be long. Jane shrugged and let herself be transferred to a new guide. If he never came back she might not even notice. But… he knew her. And that was more than she knew at the moment. He had better come back.

The new hands that guided her were less gentle, but no less thorough. They went straight to the nurse for a refit on medication and a quick check over to be sure the grass stains on her clothes didn't mean she wasn't hurt anywhere beside her head. She really wasn't.

She could tell when the pills started to work their magic. Jane's tension eased, her heart stuttered and slowed, pumping thickly. She worried less and cared less. Her pressure headache amounted to nothing more than being pelted by marshmallows.

The blindfold came off.

"Did you remember anything? All that wriggling around must have knocked something loose."

Jane shrugged at the mirrored glasses and noticed that her hair really was everywhere. She smoothed it. "Somebody who knows me is here."

"How do you know him?"

She had a hard time connecting that thought to why he might be there. She didn't know him from Adam, but he knew her because "We had a date?" He had nice lips, a body that was actively being bettered and eyes that were both sad and intense in a way that made Jane want to squirm even after her medication. She glanced out the window toward the green space outside and felt the pull. She wanted to go there. She wanted to wait.

There was no telling how long her mind had been out the window instead of in the conversation, but she picked up the thread as if she'd never dropped it. "I think he knows me more than I do." Jane glanced back toward whoever she had been talking to, but no one was there.

Sometimes the crazy even scared her.

“How can all her stuff be gone?” Lucas raged as he slammed his fist down on Doctor Peterson’s desk. “That’s Noel’s life! You don’t have the right to take it from her!”

The gray haired doctor sat calmly behind his desk and allowed the man to vent his frustrations. He had nothing to worry about. He had protection. To his left, the black brute from the park flexed his crossed arms menacingly. His eyes showed intent to cause bodily harm at the slightest nod from his superior. To the doctor’s right, another man was standing in stark contrast to his counterpart. He seemed thin and frail with heavy black framed glasses and large buck teeth. This man stood stupidly, his neck arched over his sunken shoulders like a sulking emo teen.

Lucas turned from the trio and looked through the two-way mirror into the other room. Noel stood by a grate covered window, gazing longingly towards freedom as the sunshine bathed her face. She mumbled softly to herself and her blindfold was gone. It looked like they had drugged her again once Lucas had left her side. He hated to see her like that but the fruitless discussion with the doctor had seemed necessary. In hindsight, it had been pointless.

Doctor Peterson adjusted his glasses with a liver spot covered hand and then addressed Lucas again in an official tone. “I told you before, the state delivered Ms. Doe to us as she was unable to care for herself. Unless you can prove your identify as a family member or guardian, you have no ability to petition for her release. Quite frankly, all we know about you is your first name.”

“She was unable to care for herself because they took away her support system.” Lucas growled through clenched teeth. “Are you even listening to me? And her name is Noel Gage. Not Ms. Doe.”

The doctor sighed like an adult trying to explain physics to a child. “I didn’t want to say this but you give me little choice. This will be tough for you to hear Mr. Monroe, but she is not, in fact, Noel Gage. She stole that woman’s identify. No one knows who she is.”

The words hit harder than any boxer’s punch ever could. The doctor continued on unphased by the shocked look on Lucas’ face. “Noel Gage was an FBI agent that went missing a little while ago. When Jane returned to the FBI as Noel, she was apprehended. They could not get anything from her to help discover the whereabouts of their agent so she was sent to me. The sad truth is, even if you were family, your friend can’t be released until it is determined that she is not involved in Noel Gage’s death.”

It was a lot of information to take in. Lucas continued to watch Noel through the glass as he tried to process everything he had just learned. She seemed so distant, locked away from the world, unable to truly comprehend the situation she was in. Her life was over. There was nothing Lucas could do to help her now. She didn’t remember anything about a lost Federal Agent, she couldn’t even remember last month. She would live out the rest of her days in this hospital, and thanks to Lucas running into her, might never even feel actual grass beneath her toes again.

Then, Lucas saw through the lie the doctor told. The young mutant’s jaw clenched tightly together and his brow furrowed. He examined the common room of the asylum more closely. A teenage boy rocked in an old chair in the corner, seemingly oblivious to his surroundings or the drool rolling down his chin. The long mullet on his head hid the lines on his neck but they were unmistakable. The boy had gills.

Across the room, an older woman with a graying pony tail played checkers against herself. Whenever she reached out to take a piece, her eyes seemed to catch the rays of sun from the window and hold them. Her irises would flash a fiery orange as if on fire before she could blink the effect away.

All around the room, subtle signs could be seen. Most of the patients seemed normal but the evidence was there. These were mutants. At least some, maybe even all of them. They had all been sequestered away to keep society protected. There was no rehabilitation for these people, only an endless stream of paper cups and water for chasing down the pills. But that wasn’t the Doctor’s lie, just his deep dark secret.

“Give me the picture doctor.” Lucas said, the calm of his voice betraying the anger clawing up from within.

Peterson tried to correct him. “I told you all her things are gone young man.”

Turning to face the old doctor, Lucas felt a smirk raise the corner of his lip. It wasn’t a happy grin. He had caught him. The story was unraveling. “Then how do you know my last name if you don’t have the notation on her picture?”

Peterson sighed again and shook his head as if disappointed. “I had hoped you could be reasoned with Mr. Monroe.” Waving a hand dismissively to his compatriot he addressed the orderly beside him. “Jefferson, please show the man out.”

The large black man smiled eagerly and stepped around the desk. “Wit Pleja doc.”

“They are all mutants, aren’t they?” Lucas accused, goading the doctor to slip up further before his time ran out. It seemed like this man was the warden in some sick underground prison, not a doctor meant to heal the sick. Lucas wanted to hear him say it. Wanted him to admit the truth so he could be sure before he threw his life away.

“Wait a moment Jefferson.” Peterson said as he took his glasses off. Jefferson stopped like an obedient dog, glaring at Lucas, readying for assault. The doctor glared back at the mutant before him, his annoyance clearly showing through now. “Can you understand how important places like this are to humanity? Of course not. Your concern is for your precious little piece of ass out there. But there is another side to her. A dangerous and dark side. This girl has the power to destroy the mind of anyone she comes in contact with. What says she should have the right to be free and cause havoc in countless other people’s lives?” The doctor stood up and shouted across his desk now, the vein on his neck popped out and his face turned an ugly red color. “You’re a fool living in a fantasy world! These things will eradicate us all if we don’t protect ourselves! It’s us or them! You need to grow up and get on board!”

The man’s fear and hatred had probably consumed him long ago. Mixed with a self righteous belief in his cause meant there was no reasoning with the madman. Nothing Lucas said would make a difference and anything he tried would only prove to the doctor he was right. Peterson’s opinion didn’t matter anymore though. There was only one thing left to do.

*****

A thousand shards of glass exploded outward as Jefferson’s unconscious body sailed through the two-way mirror and landed on the floor of the common room. Lucas remained in the office, his fists clenched and muscles taught. He knew he had just crossed over a line in the sand, but he hadn’t been the one that put it there. Things had been set in motion and all he could do was what he thought was right. He would hold his head high when the consequences caught up to him.

“Give me the picture doctor.” Lucas said forcefully to the old man behind the desk. “I won’t ask you again.”

There was a loud sound behind her and it took Jane a very long time to be bothered about it. By the time she remembered that she did want to look, there were already people bustling around the scene. Hazel eyes fell impassively on a man who was laying very still. The sun glittered off the ground around him as if his tears had been turned to silver, white and red jewels. He had been crying a lot.

"Pretty." She turned back to her window until another curious sensation gripped her. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up.

She turned back toward the man on the floor and looked past him, past the glitter and the nurse taking his pulse. Lucas was in there.

Her eyes began to shake and something hit her across the face. Her heart slogged with the need to rush despite it's chemical weights. Jane put her hand to her cheek and brought her face back up to looked at the red headed orderly with balled fists. A fireball whizzed behind her, distracting Jane briefly. "You did this." The woman pulled back her fist for another blow and Jane's mind raced with a jolt of clarity.

How could Jane have done this? The angles were wrong for her to put that man through that window and she didn't remember doing it. It was possible she could have done it and then come back over to this side of the room, but her gut told her this wasn't right.

"No." Jane's arm went up to block the punch a bit slower than she should have but a glancing blow was better than the full force she had taken earlier. Her world shook through epileptic vision. "You did this."

Jane flung her whole body at the woman and rode her down to the ground. The sight on the way down was far too distracting to notice hands snaking around her throat and squeezing.

White coats were spilling in trying desperately to control the situation. A man with a mullet was hanging from the rafters, raining checkers pieces down on the interlopers. A woman juggled three orderlies in the air like they were rag dolls, tossing them away only when they got too boring and limp to juggle properly. An orderly with a needle was subduing a man whose body was changing into something with very, very long teeth.

Jane and the orderly hit the ground with matching oofs, Jane propped awkwardly up off the woman by the hands that kept her throat at arm's length from the orderly. That gave her a better view of the room, she didn't fight it. She could hardly feel anything anyway.

She only felt dizzy as a young man started growing taller and taller and taller. Jane tried to see him all the way up, but was distracted by a woman with fire in her eyes fighting off a sparkling syringe. Warm blood squirted across the room from somewhere. The dark spots at the edge of her vision only served to enhance the strangeness of it all. It was, the word choked out, "Pretty."