This story refers to and uses a few lines of dialogue from the first season episode ‘Blood Ties’ – it might not make much sense unless you’ve seen it. Mutant X is copyright Tribune Entertainment. No copyright infringement intended, no profit made.

I’m lying in my bed, listening to Brennan’s soft breathing. He appears to be deep in restful sleep – he hasn’t moved a muscle since he turned in his sleep and buried his nose in my shoulder. It feels good to be here in the peaceful darkness, feeling the warmth of his body next to mine, but I can’t sleep. Even Brennan Mulwray’s skilful hands and mouth didn’t manage to shut down my brain tonight. There’s just too much on my mind right now.

Leaving the club the night before last – it’s hard to believe it was only two days ago – I really expected Brennan to come home with me. That’s how stupid I am… Brennan… Well, he was off playing Mr. Macho Stud again. I know we have a deal, but does he have to flaunt the girls in my face? Sometimes I think he’s doing it on purpose to see how far he can go – to see just how much I’ll put up with.

Anyway, on my way to the car, I was musing about our relationship – if you can call it that – and wasn’t fully prepared for what happened. I guess Adam would be pleased to know that even in my somewhat distracted state I could still tell someone was following me.

It was a real shock to see my father again. I’d missed him for so long, it was hard to believe he was really there all of the sudden. For a fleeting moment, I thought he might have come back just to see me, but the flying bullets rid me of that idea pretty quickly. Then, all my attention was on the fight – and once that was over, he was gone again.

At first, I was worried about my father disappearing like that. Maybe there was a small voice inside my head that didn’t like the fact that he’d bailed out on me and left me to deal with his mess, but I sure as hell wasn’t listening to it. When I found his cell phone on the concrete floor, I realized he must have had a plan, and that he wanted to get in touch with me again, later. After that, it was easy to find all the rationalizations to explain his behavior. So what if he hadn’t come to me just to see how I was doing? He was obviously in trouble, and he had come to me for help. My dad counted on me!

Finding out that Brennan didn’t score with the brunette after all suddenly seemed like a small deal in comparison. I could tell he was concerned for me when he realized something had happened, but I didn’t really care. There were more important things on my mind. And yeah, I was still a bit angry with him. We didn’t talk much on the way back home, and we both slept in our own beds that night.

The next day, I was going out of my mind waiting for the cell phone to ring. No matter how much I tried to concentrate on other things, in my head I kept picturing my father lying dead in some alley or being tortured by the people chasing him. Even the martial arts exercises that usually help me clear my head couldn’t keep me focused for long.

When the phone finally rang, and it was in fact my father and not some phone company salesman, I was so relieved that I bought all his lines without questioning them for a second. And he did say all the right things like ‘Sorry’, ‘I didn’t want to get you involved’, and then the clincher: ‘I had no idea where else to turn’ – just the words I needed to hear.

When I told him we were family, I meant it. I needed to believe that. I wanted him to know that although he might have left me and Mom, I knew it wasn’t his fault – and that I wouldn’t leave him. I felt bad about keeping the others in the dark, but this was his business, not mine. I couldn’t blame him for not trusting my friends, because he didn’t know them. The important thing was that he trusted me.

Getting ready to leave the Sanctuary for our meeting, I ran into Brennan. I didn’t want to have to deal with him right there and then, so I was a little annoyed right from the start. The moment I heard him say that he’d been researching Nexxogen, my blood pressure shot way up. I could tell by the tone of his voice that he was going out of his way trying to find fault with my father. And then, he tried to pull his own father into it! Man, I couldn’t believe it! I came very close to hitting him in the face, but in the end, I just told him I had a date. That was almost as satisfying.

When I got to our meeting place – a few minutes late, thanks to Brennan – I was still seething inside. That’s why I was a little slow to get going even when the GSA guys were bearing down on me. Luckily, I had a good head start, and they weren’t fast enough.

I didn’t think twice about taking my father to the safe house. I knew it was empty, and it had everything we needed. Plus, I wanted to get him someplace where we could talk freely. This time, he didn’t just say the right things, he also did the right things. Hugging him again… it felt weird, and at the same time, wonderful. And hearing that he was interested in what I’m doing, hearing him say ‘I’m proud of you’ – that was a dream come true.

I wasn’t happy about keeping secrets from my team members, but Dad’s reasoning seemed sound to me. I couldn’t fault him for not wanting to put my friends in harm’s way. Besides, after my exchange with Brennan, I was no longer sure that the others would be interested in helping us, anyway.

Looking back, it’s easy to see how my father pulled rank on me, knowing he could control me. Yeah, I fell for ‘Daddy knows best,’ all right. Well, to be honest, I liked giving up control to him. For a while, I didn’t have to be a grownup. I could trust somebody else to make the big decisions. The problem with that is, of course, that you need to know whose interests the person making the decisions is protecting. I thought I knew. I really am stupid.

Back at the Sanctuary, listening to Adam telling me my father was trying to blackmail Nexxogen, I didn’t want to believe my ears. To some extent, I could understand Brennan being jealous of my father, but Adam? No matter what he says, he still acts like he’s our father most of the time, but he’s also big on ethics and doing the right thing.

And Shalimar… She’s been my closest friend for years now. She knows me better than probably anybody else, and I guess I’ve sort of come to expect her to stand up for me. It really hurt to see her siding with the others against me.

Stealing the Double Helix, I expected to hear from Adam – and not just because of the plane. The kind of father he is doesn’t let his kids run off without a word. I wasn’t too surprised to learn that the others were with him, or to hear the girls try to plead with me to return. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised that all Brennan had to say was ‘why didn’t you tell us you had the disc?’, but I hung on the line for several seconds, foolishly hoping he would say something more.

I’ve gotten pretty good at reading Brennan between the lines. Out of necessity, of course, because he doesn’t really talk about things. Sometimes I just wish…

I really do like the banter Brennan and I have going most of the time. As close as I am to Shalimar, I can’t quite do that with her. Shalimar’s as tough as any guy I know – including Brennan – in a fight, but she’s still female, and it’s a guy thing. Yeah, we often have light banter going among the entire team, but us guys can actually communicate with each other through that. I don’t understand at all why women are always so big on spelling out everything.

Back to Brennan. He does say stuff… compliment my moves when we’re sparring or after a fight, or quip something like ‘Nice shirt’ or ‘Don’t you look hot in that’ – things that everybody would expect to hear from him anyway. Sometimes, if nobody else is around to hear it, he’ll say those same things, and they aren’t quips anymore. And then, when we’re really alone… without ever uttering a syllable, he says things with his mouth that make my insides quiver. But he never talks about how he’s feeling. He hardly ever says anything at all about his feelings, and he’s never said a word about how he feels about me. It would be nice… if he would… just once…

Damn it, I wasn’t going to cry!

The single teardrops running down my face become a small river that I don’t seem to be able to stem no matter how hard I try. I manage to cry silently, but my body must have betrayed my state because pretty soon Brennan’s stirring, and then his sleepy voice murmurs my name. I can’t answer him – I’m too busy trying to swallow my tears. He turns on the bedside lamp, and instinctively I turn my face away from him.

He murmurs my name again, more coherently this time. Next, he’s pulling me against his chest, and then for a long time he holds me in his arms, stroking my hair as everything just pours out of me in a flood that’s totally out of control. Finally, I run out of tears, and even the shivers that have rocked my body begin to fade away. Brennan unwraps one of his arms from around my body and gets a paper hankie from the nightstand. I blow my nose a couple of times, then clear my voice.

“Thanks, Brennan.” My voice still sounds a little stuffed.

“No problem, Jess.”

It’s kind of funny that Brennan calls me by the same nickname that my father uses – used. Gotta get used to thinking in the past tense. He might still be alive, but he’s not a part of my life anymore. At least this time I left him.

His phone call about the disc had made me a little suspicious, but I didn’t want to believe that my friends were right about him. In the end, I put the Double Helix on hover over the city in stealth mode while I checked out the contents of his precious disc. The file was everything Adam had said it would be, but still I had to see for myself. Up until the moment I walked into the safe house and found my father there with the GSA agents, I hoped there would be another explanation.

I don’t think it can ever be easy to find out that your father is a liar and a thief who’d callously use his own child to further his moneymaking scheme. And if that wasn’t enough to completely ruin my opinion of him, another realization was: my father, the super agent, wasn’t even smart enough to realize that Eckhard’s people would have killed him the minute they’d gotten their hands on that disc.

The thing that really hurt me, though, was that afterwards he still tried to sugarcoat things and even tried to use me as an excuse for his actions. When that didn’t work, he tried to make me believe he’d had no choice! Listening to him made me sick to my stomach, and still, the thing that hurt the most... ‘Why couldn’t you’ve just come back for me?’ The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them, and I hated myself for letting him see how much I was hurting. I hated myself for needing anything from him.

I also hated the fact that the guy I’d treated unfairly, and whom I’d only known for a few months, still cared enough about me to risk his ass to help me get out of the mess my own father had gotten me into.

“I mean… thank you for following me to the safe house. For watching my back.” For saying ‘Always got your back.’ I heard the words, but they didn’t really register at the time. Now I’ve realized they’re the closest thing Brennan has ever said to what I want to hear from him.

“You didn’t think I’d just let you go get yourself hurt by yourself?”

“I didn’t…” I don’t know what to say, and besides I’m again too choked up to talk.

After a moment, Brennan’s lips start pressing gentle little kisses on the sensitive batch of skin in front of my ear, and his arms squeeze me a little tighter against his chest. His breath tickles my ear as one of his hands comes up to caress my hair again. “I’ve got you, Jess.”

The words sound pretty fervent to me. I expect something more, something that will lighten up the atmosphere, but Brennan is uncharacteristically silent. That’s okay, though. I hear him, anyway – loud and clear. I know now that there are blood ties, and then there are bonds made of heart’s blood.

I lift my head off Brennan’s chest and seek his lips with my own.