Reckoning

By Laersyn

DISCLAIMER: The characters belong to Marvel. The world belongs to Marvel. The author belongs to Kielle.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Okay, this one's a little long. I tried very hard to get the characters right, and the legal issues and continuity. I apologize for anything that is unclear or blatantly wrong. All in all, though, by the end, it should all be clear.

SPECIAL THANKS: Abyss beta-read this. He did a heroic job, catching all of the points I tried to gloss over, all the legal issues that I didn't want to deal with and all the character points I forgot. I owe him a great huge mug of Guinness, I have to say. Abyss, thank you!!! This story worked out because of you!

[Kielle's additional note: John Carlton & Anna Mayfaire belong to me -- they're from my own Vertigo: No Way Up. Neat, huh?]

Jennifer Walters was sitting in the most uncomfortable chair she had ever had the misfortune of resting her six-foot-ten emerald-green Amazonian frame upon. The problem was not the cramped quarters which had her so tightly packed that her fingers and toes were losing circulation. Nor was it the lascivious leers coming from the prison guards standing by the door. It was not even the fact that juggling her super-hero and professional careers had resulted in her being here with a wrinkled skirt and a blouse with an embarrassing ketchup stain over her left breast.

What had Jennifer Walters writhing was the fact that she was here to watch her client die.

Her client did not appear to her to be the cold-blooded murderer that everyone else saw. There was something almost noble in the sedate young face of the person sitting upon the electric chair. She set her jaw and forced herself to remain outwardly calm.

Jennifer had never been in this position before. She had rarely ever tried cases where the death penalty was invoked, and had not lost one of those before now. Her personal convictions were that capital punishment was wrong.

But the lives of three people had been lost, and the state of New York demanded justice.

Straps were put into place and cinched tight. There was no struggle from the victim now. The time for that was past, she knew. Now was only the time to accept and prepare.

Jennifer briefly entertained the thought of a heroic rescue. In point of fact, she had already thought long and hard on the subject. There had never been a more unjust verdict, in her opinion -- a point validated by how quickly the state had moved to the execution phase.

The first mutant execution was as much a matter of politics as it was one of justice. Both the D.A and the Mayor had ridden to re-election on the success of their state in this trial a point she had tried and failed to make in court. No one had wanted to hear that her client could not get a fair trial surrounded by so much publicity. It made her ill just thinking about it.

Rescue was just not an option, though, and she knew it. The prison authorities had objected strenuously to her presence at the outset. The only way she had finally been allowed in was through an agreement which had resulted in the loan of special weapons to the prison guards -- weapons that had been designed with the Hulk in mind.

Jennifer could not do anything for her client even if she wanted to; which she did more desperately every minute. Since she did not want to find herself in a cell of her own, however, she focused on keeping her considerable temper in check.

In an effort to distract herself, she tracked back over the events that had lead up to this travesty of justice. All of the litigation and appeals had done nothing but delayed the inevitable. The razor-sharp sword of justice was about to fall.

It was, perhaps, appropriate that it had all begun in the Morlock Tunnels. From all she had read and heard through the course of her research for this case, the subterranean labyrinth seemed to be a breeding nest for misery...

There were rumors, too -- stories of ghosts that lured children into the darkness and never let them go. On cold winter nights one could, if one listened, hear the panicked wailing of people dying carried on the chill breeze. Though no one knew the Morlocks or what fate had befallen them, most everyone could sense the tragedy soaked into the stones -- a carnal reek that touched the soul like unto that which plagued such places as Auschwitz and Dachau...

To Sara, it was and always would be home.

She had grown up in the maze of tunnels. There was a perverse comfort in the endless shadows beneath the lighted streets. It was familiar to her and, despite soul-scarring memories of one fateful day that had sundered her childhood, she was most at peace down here.

The X-Men didn't want her around, certainly. She knew that. It was convenient to her, though, since she had no desire to be around them, either. Despite the presence of her Angel and the somewhat tolerable Bobby and the pleasant-though-she-would-never-tell-him-so Sam, she could barely stand being around the self-righteous heroes.

Down here, too, was the last person she would willingly admit to caring about. Callisto lay in failing health after being terribly wounded. She had brought the one-time Morlock leader down here for sanctuary, a place to find healing.

Sara simply refused to accept the idea that Callisto could die. If she believed it for an instant, she knew, it might just come to pass.

Marrow frowned slightly when she saw a bright orange "X" spray-painted on one of the tunnel walls. She was too far in for it to be one of those vandal gang-banger taggers, and it was no gang symbol she recognized anyway. Judging by the symbol smeared on the wall, it was on all likelihood the beginning of some kind of anti-mutant slander.

The question was, where had the little misfits who had started it run off to?

Sara slowed down and started skulking more quietly though the tunnels. Now that she was paying attention instead of wandering around like a brain-dead flatscan, she could sense the intruders.

There were surface-slugs in her home.

"Lucky you didn't just walk right into them," she told herself accusingly. She reached behind her, not finding any protrusion that was actually "ripe" yet. So she gritted her teeth and snapped off one within reach, letting the pain that sent shooting through her fuel her anger. "'Hi, I'm Marrow, your mutie chump for the day, how would you like to murder me?'"

Voices ahead of her marked the enemy's location. The casually thrown words also showed that the intruders were not concerned about someone finding them, which probably meant that they were just people here on some innocuous errand.

Sara crept closer until she could make out what was being said.

"...we should be able to punch right through this wall."

"Looks like a stable flooring too, Bob. The budget boys will be thrilled to know we won't have to spend a fortune on laying a foundation."

Wry chuckles responded to the man's statement.

Humans, she thought bitterly. The most unwelcome kind of intruder. Fortunately, they were the sort who scared easily. She'd be able to run them off and be at Callisto's side in just a few minutes.

Marrow crouched low like a hunting cat and prowled around the corner. There were five men that she could see, each adorned with ties and hardhats. Harmless, unthreatening in both appearance and demeanor, none of them appeared to even notice her.

She detested the thought of flatscans in her domain and she intended to demonstrate her displeasure.

"Clear the way!" someone else shouted, just beyond her intended victims.

A pair of blue-jacketed humans were carrying a stretcher towards her. Another one -- a policeman, she saw -- was carrying a clear bag alongside the stretcher at eye level. Two more cops flanked the stretcher. One was pushing the tunnel-workers out of the way of the procession while the other muttered a report into his radio.

"Hey, is she gonna be okay?" one of the workers asked.

"Not sure yet. What the hell was she doing down here?" one of the blue-jacketed men replied.

Callisto.

Sara caught a glimpse of her on the stretcher.

Thought became more of an addendum to action than a precursor to it for Sara at that point.

"Leave her alone!" she screamed, advancing on these intruders with a hateful look.

"Jesus H. Christ!" one of the cops yelped.

"What the hell is that?" a stretcher-carrier gasped.

Marrow punched that one in the face and lunged at the second one carrying the stretcher.

"Hold her!"

The cops and construction workers grabbed her and hauled her away from Callisto, despite her frantic struggles. They were each of them stronger than she, and all together she could not overpower them.

But she could try...

"We're taking her to a hospital," one of the police shouted over her inarticulate screams.

"Do you know her?" another one asked her.

"She doesn't belong with you!" Sara hissed. "Put her down or I'll kill you all!" She got an arm free and clawed at one of the blue-jacketed men. Damn these humans! she thought.

"We're trying to help, lady, now calm down!" the first cop ordered.

Sara stomped on a foot and ripped free from their hands. Her mutation betrayed her, though, for one of them was able to get a hold of a growth jutting from her left ulna. With that handhold, she was pinned for a moment.

"My...god..." the cop whispered.

The much stronger policemen yanked her back a step, using his macabre grip to its fullest. The bone snapped off as she struggled, sending a wave of nausea through her as the not-quite-ripe growth broke. She redoubled her struggles within a heartbeat, thrashing and flailing like a wildcat. Her elbow smashed into one of their faces and there was a scream.

Her blood was high, though, and so she did not so much as pause.

"Pin her down!" one of the workers, watching all the while, shouted.

Sara ducked around a clumsy grab and spun, kicking one of the slow-moving surface-slugs in the gut hard enough to knock him flat. They pressed in on her now, grabbing and swinging at her and trying to subdue her.

A nightstick hit her hard across the backs of her knees, but that hardly stopped her. Her knife slashed outward, cutting through and flesh within reach.

A tazer took her in the back, though, and the fight was suddenly over.

She tried not to remember the first moment very often -- when the ignorant prison officials had clicked the damnable device onto her and her mutation had been silenced. The bones had stayed, of course -- only without her power dulling the pain of her sundered flesh or supporting the inhuman skeletal structure.

Even after the surgery she had ached all over.

"Sara, I'm Jennifer Walters. Your friends have hired me to represent you."

"Friends?" she snorted at the green giantess.

"Yes," Jennifer affirmed. She looked quite odd, dressed in a custom black suit as she was. As a hero and a fighter, the attempt at elegant professionalism made her look almost ridiculous.

Sara had the sense to not laugh.

"Now then, you're facing three counts of first-degree murder, five counts of assault with a deadly weapon and a single count of attempted murder. That's quite a laundry list. Care to tell me your side of it?"

Sara leaned back in her chair, an arrogantly defiant smile on her face. "So, they send a freak to defend a freak. How appropriate."

"Jennifer."

"What?"

"My name. It's Jennifer, not freak. Keep that in mind."

Sara shrugged indifferently. "Whatever."

"Thank you," was the cool response. "Now, if we can continue?"

"Sure, Jen," Sara replied, all smiles.

The tall woman gave her a warning glare. "All right, now what happened?"

"We fought, they lost. End of story."

"Three of them died. Six of them were hospitalized. One of them is still in a coma. That's a bit more than an average street brawl," Jennifer countered.

"So? Is it my fault that nine men couldn't beat one woman?"

The green-hued lawyer sighed heavily and shook her head. "You'll have to come up with something better than that before you go before a jury."

"Like what?"

"Well, what started the fight? Was there some mutant slander? A sexual assault, perhaps?"

Sara laughed out loud. "Oh yeah, that's it. They were overwhelmed by my gorgeous bod and lost control." The sarcasm positively dripped from every word. "It happens to me all the time."

"All right," Jennifer snapped, her gaze dangerous.

"Hey, speaking of, is it true what they say? Did you really get to be She-Hulk by swallowing Bruce Banner's choad?"

The table snapped in two and collapsed.

Jennifer, on her feet and quivering, stared at Sara with agate-hard eyes. A guard came in, but she waved him out. "Enough." Sara folded her arms defiantly, refusing to be intimidated. "You think you're a tough-as-nails, wise-ass, heroic rebel, I know. Well, I've got some tough reality for you. The state of New York wants to see you dead for these crimes and I'm the only one who can keep it from happening. The judge and jury won't be amused by your childish attitude and your pre-pubescent humor. This isn't a game and it isn't for fun. This is more real than anything you've ever experienced. If you want to live to see the millennium, you'd better climb down from your high-horse and knock that chip off your shoulder and give me some god-damned cooperation. Got it?"

Sara stared at her, unable to mask the glimmer of terror dancing in her heartless blue eyes. Her pale skin took on a sickly pallor and she shivered.

"It doesn't matter what I say. They're gonna kill me no matter what. Why bother?"

Jennifer sat back down, a wry smile on her lips. "Why not?"

There was an irony there, of course. The United States trial system was set up to give the accused a trial by a jury of his peers. Such had not been the case here. She had tried desperately to get a couple of mutants on one of the juries, but those candidates had been the first that the prosecution had picked to be removed.

The one truly solid defense that Jennifer had found for her client was a severe, deep-rooted childhood trauma. She had summoned one of the leading hypno-therapists in the country to testify on what Sara had told him while under.

The prosecution had parried that move with testimony from the police chief that emphatically stated that there was no evidence now or then of a massive slaughter under the streets of New York.

And what could she do to counter such irrefutable evidence?

The only living witnesses to the crime that he had known of were the X-Men, but calling them would have been utterly futile. Each of them were guilty of any number of minor or major crimes -- a fact that the prosecution would gleefully use to undermine the given testimony.

There had been only one single hope -- something mentioned to her by Warren when she had interviewed the X-Men who had been witnesses. Thor had been down in the tunnels during the killings, and as a former teammate, she was able to call in a favor.

The prosecution had thrown a fit at her motion, though. The judge had ruled against her on the grounds that the jury could not be expected to believe the testimony of a man who claimed to be the ancient Norse god of thunder.

So, piece by piece, Jennifer had watched her case come apart. She knew that she had done her best. There were just too many factors involved -- racism, for one. All three juries had been made up of at least two mutant-haters -- or at least Jennifer had suspected as much. Her attempts to link a few of the jurors to the Friends of Humanity had failed, though.

Politics, too, had played their part. The D.A., the governor...even the judges...each had known that sending a mutant to the chair was a good P.R. move. It would show everyone (and most especially their constituents) that no one was above the law.

Amnesty International had gotten involved, and about a dozen other anti-death penalty groups, but they had met with the same failure Jennifer had. There were people who normally opposed capital punishment that were in favor of this execution.

The trouble Jennifer was having, though, was that of all her cases, this one had been the one she had need to win the most. Failure was not so bad, but now a life was lost because of it and the knowledge made her ill.

For the first time, she started to empathize with Sara's bitter cynicism.

Scott knew the dangerous temperaments of his friends. Living just outside the law as they all had for so long, with only each other for support, had made them a rather insular group with loyalties that superseded laws and personal danger.

Bobby and Hank took up position on the couch, looking pensive and unhappy. They were some of his oldest friends. Scott knew he could rely on them, but he had summoned everyone so that he didn't give the appearance of playing favorites.

He did not know that burning in Bobby's heart was a burgeoning sense of responsibility. He had befriended Marrow and brought her in with promises of safety. To abandon her now would be breaking his word. The idea of betraying Sara that way made Bobby furious.

Sam was sitting in a chair with his head between his knees and his hands in his hair, obviously torn right in half by the circumstances. Scott knew the young man well enough that he trusted him, but he had called him in too.

Storm stood upon the stairs, her serene expression unfathomable. She had once led the X-Men, and since his return as leader, he had always felt that she judged his every action. Now he felt that scrutiny all the more.

Warren and Betsy were standing by the stairs, their faces expectant. They were obviously anticipating action. Angel, especially, who shared a connection with the girl that Scott did not even begin to understand.

Maggot sat cross-legged on the floor, as enigmatic as always -- doing what Scott assumed was cuddling with his symbiotes.

Dr. Reyes seemed aloof and indifferent, but Scott did not trust his reading of the woman. He still did not understand her very well. For all he knew, she might already be laying plans to break Sara out.

Jean stood next to Scott, as she always did, providing the strength and support that she always did in these difficult times. Her expression was serene and impassive, betraying nothing of her thoughts.

The psychic link, however, gave him an even more disturbing picture. He could feel an icy, bitter hate pulsing through his wife. It was unlike any feeling he had ever picked up from her.

Rogue and Joseph were still off on whatever personal business they had left for, and Bishop was still absent as well.

Scott looked around, frowning. His biggest worry was not here at all, and that was a very bad sign. He started to turn and ask Jean to do a telepathic Search when the last X-Man finally made his entrance.

"I'm already packed," Logan growled as he walked into the living room in full costume. "Don't even try to talk me out of it. Ain't no bureaucrat gonna kill an X-Man while my old carcass is still moving around."

The furtive glances exchanged between a few of the others warned Scott that he had a potential mutiny on his hands. He gave the dissenters a stern, unwavering glance. He wanted to be sure that they understood that going rogue was not an option.

"Settle down, Logan," Scott ordered. "Before you all go running off half-cocked, you're going to listen to me.

"Sara got the best representation that could be bought. She was convicted by twelve people who don't know her from Adam. The state has spoken. We may not agree with it -- I certainly don't -- but we have no right to interfere.

"Do not forget that she killed three people. They had a right to live too. I'm not saying that this is right or fair, I'm saying that no one in this room has the right to make that decision.

"If you go and use your powers to break her out of prison, then you become the very thing we fight every day. You will be no better than the Marauders or Magneto or Apocolypse.

"Just because we have the power to do something, it does not mean that we have the right."

"Something tells me, maat, that you'd be whistling a different tune of it was Jean facing the chair," Maggot spoke up. "No offense meant."

"She wouldn't kill three people," Scott returned coldly.

"She didn't get a fair trial, Summers, and you know it. At least one of those juries was slanted against mutants."

"How do you know that?" Scott demanded.

"I could smell it," Wolverine snarled.

"Logan, I am forbidding you are any X-Man to intervene in this matter," Cyclops said sternly.

Logan shook his head and headed for the front door.

"Don't even push it, Logan. I'll blast you straight into next week and lock you up in cold storage if I have to." The set of his jaw under his glowing visor drove home the point that he was not joking.

Wolverine threw a feral glare over his shoulder. "Try it, Summers. I'll cut you open like before, only I won't let Dr. Reyes stitch you back up."

"You wouldn't be able to stop me," Dr. Reyes spoke up defensively.

A feral grin split the short, burly man's face. "Think not?" he challenged.

"Logan, stop," Ororo said sternly.

"Leave me be, 'Ro," the veteran warrior replied, more gently. "X-Men stick together, end of story. What she did ain't right, and if I thought she got a fair trial, I'd let it go, but we all know that she didn't."

"Wolverine, my friend, you must not do this. You will have us all branded as outlaws," Storm warned, her calm voice tinged with steel.

"We already are," Logan snapped.

"And you will destroy Xavier's dream. The dream so many have bled for," Ororo pressed, her tone emphatic.

Scott nodded slowly. Wolverine snorted bitterly and stalked off in the direction of the danger room to break some things. The meeting adjourned then, and with it went the brittle tension pervading the room. Each X-Man left, shuffling silently out.

Scott breathed a sigh of relief. "Amazing, they listened. It's nice to know they still have some respect for me," he breathed, looking over at Jean. "I'll need you to keep tabs...on...Jean, honey, what's wrong?"

Her green eyes were narrowed on him and her expression was colder than he had ever seen it. "I never thought I'd see the day that you turned on an X-Man."

Scott jerked backwards as if she had slapped him. He could hardly believe her reaction. "But...Jean..." he murmured, reached out to her.

"Leave me alone," she hissed and stormed off.

Sara had glared at the pinch-faced judge with venomous contempt when the judgment had been laid down. She had spat oaths at the jury when the bailiffs had taken her from the courtroom. Even Jennifer, whom she had come to admire somewhat (though she'd never admit it) had only received an ironic "I told you so" smile at the last.Now Sara was alone and so, since no one would see her shaking, she gave into full-fledged panic.

She sat upon her cot with her knees drawn up to her chest and did her best to block out the idea of what it would feel like to have thousands of volts of electricity shot through her body.

"I didn't actually mean to kill them," she thought with a snuffle.

"Oh First One," she whispered. "I know what I did was wrong. But...I won't do it again. I've learned my lesson. If I could just have one chance...I'd do everything right..."

Sara meant it, too. She had never been more alone than she was at that moment, and it had her deeply frightened. Only now did she realize how attached she had grown to the X-Men... "Well, some of them anyway. Scott's still an insufferable, power-crazy -- okay, okay, right...I promised -- Scott's...nice..."

Sara was a warrior, and she truly did not fear dying in battle. The idea of sitting in this cell, though, until the men came to take her to her execution made her ill.

"I'm not afraid, I'm not afraid," she thought desperately. "I...I'm just not ready to die."

It was not her choice to make, though, and that knowledge -- that awareness that her life was no longer her own to control -- angered and scared her.

She ran her shaking hands over her goose-pimpled flesh, still amazed at the sensation of skin unbroken by protruding bones. The inhibitor collar around her neck had kept her mutations at bay for months.

Briefly, she remembered the look on Sam's face when he had first come to visit her. Had it not been for the glass separating them, she was certain that the blushing farmboy would have kissed her. Or tried, if she'd let him...

Sara did not allow herself such thought -- they were too dangerous. Hope was something that would break her here, and so she denied it to herself. In prison, he could not touch her and on the outside, she was a freak.

"That's life," she told herself. "Don't whine about it."

Scott had been surprised by his wife's reaction to his decision. Jean's temper, however, was nothing compared to the wrath of She-Hulk, who smashed her way into the mansion early the next morning. The calm, composed Jennifer that they had known was completely subsumed by the fury of her alter-ego.

She stood in the entryway of the mansion, shedding the remains of their automated defenses onto the floor. Her chest heaved as she sucked in deep breaths. Her face, usually so serene, was no twisted into a mask of dreadful anger.

Scott tried to calm her down, but a threatening glare from her cowed even the fearless leader of the X-Men. "You'd better have a damn good explanation -- no, scratch that. There's no explanation that you could come up with that would make this any better," she snarled.

The groggily battle-alert X-Men stared at her in stunned amazement. Even Logan seemed to shocked to move. Scott spread his hands defenselessly. "Jennifer, what are you talking about?"

"If you were just going to handle this on your own, why the hell did you even hire me?" the enraged lawyer demanded.

A worry began to worm its way up from Scott's gut. "What happened?"

"You don't know?" Jennifer stared at him in shock. "One of your friends broke Sara out of a maximum security prison and you don't even know?"

Scott's lips pressed into a thin white line. "No, I don't," he growled angrily under his breath, furious that his orders had been ignored. "Jean, I told you to keep an eye on them."

"I did," was the chillingly aloof response.

He rounded on her, feeling betrayed. "And...?"

"Maggot was right. If it had been me facing the chair, you would have stopped them," she told him, her expression defiant.

Scott's eyes widened. "Jean...you didn't..."

Her satisfied smile was the only hint of warmth on her face. "No, but I know who did."

She had defended him as well, and had never encountered the sort of attitude that Sara had always thrown at her. He had been polite, apologetic and extremely cooperative. In other words, not her usual client.

Jennifer shook her head and fretted at the hem of her skirt. This whole case had been wrong from the beginning. The conclusion -- the awful, terrible deed taking place in less than ten minutes -- was the final insult, she hoped.

Part of her wished that Sara had gotten away with Guthrie. The justice system had failed her so badly; to the point where even Jennifer had been tempted to take matters into her own hands, despite the costs to herself. She had chosen not to because, as a lawyer, she knew that breaking out of prison was the worst thing for any accused. All the way up to the end, there was hope...

Oh who was she trying to fool?

Hiding two people like Sara and Sam would have been a job for any experienced covert operative, and neither of the two fugitives had been gifted with that experience. They had chosen a secure hiding spot, but one that had been far too obvious.

First, Sam had gotten all noble on her, risking his scrawny neck for her by breaking her out of prison -- a favor she had not asked for and would be damned if she felt indebted to him for. Of course, by her code, she did owe him, but she was not intending to let him know that.

The real problem, though, was his chosen bolt-hole. Sara had intended to repay Sam's completely-unsolicited-yet-somewhat-appreciated-rescue by getting as far away from him as possible as soon as they landed.

"Only Corncob drops us on a freaking island!" she hissed in exasperation.

"Thanks lots," she had snapped at him as soon as she had come to the conclusion that she was trapped.

The doctor -- Myra or something -- seemed like the sort of person that Sara could get along with if they ever got to know each other. Though painfully nice and hospitable on the surface, there was a hard-eyed rebel in her somewhere. Marrow had seen it when, upon hearing the story of the two fugitives, she had instantly shooed them inside with a few nasty remarks about the immorality of America's capital punishment system.

Sara paced throughout the clinically sterile corridors of the island compound, feeling as trapped now as she had been back in prison. At least, though, here she was not so soul-shakingly alone.

"He rescued me," she thought in wonder. "Broke me out, even though it meant pissing away his future as an X-Man. I can't believe it..."

Sara yanked herself out of her dreamy reverie. The fact remained that he had forestalled any hope of her committing the first selfless act of her life, and even if he was not aware of it, she could not let him off the hook so easily.

Marrow tapped a small bone club in the flat of her left palm. The collar was gone and so the disfigurement was back. She had mixed feelings about it. One the one hand, she hated any kind of restraint. On the other, though, well.... She still had never really seen herself without the sickly white protrusions jutting from her skin (there weren't a lot of full-length mirrors in prison) -- and it did not matter to her, she quickly amended the thought -- but Sam had not looked at her that way since the escape.

"Well, of course he's looking at you differently," she thought in exasperation. "You look like a damned corpse. Doesn't really turn most guys on." She shook her head and wandered on.

"Or is it," she wondered. "That I'm seeing him differently? Or, more specifically, am I seeing differently how he's seeing me?"

Sara pushed those questions aside. It was not important. Sam was out of her reach... The thought always rode along with the memory of his body next to hers as they had flown over the Atlantic, and knowing how fleeting that time had been always brought an obscure pain to her gut.

She eventually came across a central control room in her wanderings. Monitor screens arrayed along the wall showed images taken from all over the island.

Asleep at the panel she found Sam.

He was adorable, curled up on the panel as he was. He reminded her, sometimes, of Angel, with his blond hair and flawless face. The blue eyes, too -- now lidded -- sparkled with a clarity that she had seen many times in her dreams.

Marrow paused for a moment and just watched him.

He was probably standing watch over me, she realized. 'Keeping an eye out for the Federalies in case they showed up.'

"You're going to get a neck cramp," she said aloud. She went over to him and gently sat him up straight.

"Wha...?" he slurred, blinking awake.

Sara rolled her eyes. "Some watchman you are, falling asleep like that. Come on, back to your room."

Sam shook his head stubbornly, turning back to the controls. He wiped sleep from his eyes and tried to focus on the screens before him. "Got to keep an eye out."

"Don't make me club you like a baby seal," she warned. "Even you have to sleep sometime, corncob."

Sam yawned and shook his head, fighting off his exhaustion. Sara, who was not impeded by the burdens of tact, hauled him out of his chair and propelled him out of the room.

Sam wisely offered no further protest. He shuffled along ahead of her like a zombie, head hanging low. Sara sauntered along behind him, admiring his rear profile all the way.

"Don't expect me to keep mothering you, farmboy. I've got better things to do," she told him, taking his jacket and hanging it in the closet.

When she turned around, she discovered that the worn-out hero had already collapsed onto the bed and fallen asleep.

"Great," she murmured.

Sara rolled her eyes and walked over to him, trying very hard to edit the word "adorable" from her vocabulary as she gazed on him. It was simply unacceptable to her to keep staring at him like a doe-eyed girl.

She untied his shoes and pulled them off and maneuvered him under the blankets. He did not even stir from the movement. She smiled just the slightest bit and settled on the edge of the bed, enjoying the quiet moment.

She knew why he was so tired. He had flown her across the Atlantic, and while she had been able to doze along the way, he obviously had not. She did not know how long it had been since he had actually slept, but she was certain that it had been too long.

And, most likely, he hasn't even napped since we arrived. The idiot, she thought fondly.

Sara smoothed his soft hair away from his face, content for the moment to just sit here while he slept. There was no future for "them," she knew that. She was no girl waiting for her Knight in Shining Armor. Not her -- she was too tough, too cynical.

But, she had to admit, that if she were waiting for someone like that, Sam would be her first choice.

Sara took his hand in hers and held it. She had never known a more decent man, and that he cared at all was something that would carry her through no matter what happened.

Sara, who had apparently fallen asleep next to him, sat up slowly. "What is it?"

"Trouble, Ah think," Sam replied, untangling himself from the blankets and slipping out of bed.

Sara was instantly in a fighting crouch, bone-knife in hand. Sam had little intention of fighting here. A fight would put lives in unnecessary danger -- his, Sara's and the policemen's. Running was the only acceptable option.

He put his ear to the door and listened.

"...sensitive experiments that I dinnae want ye apes destroying!" Moira was shouting, her tone stern and commanding.

"We have a search warrant, doctor, now stand ye aside!" a deep male voice snapped back.

Sam stepped away from the door, his expression bleak. Looking around, he saw no windows or doors that led outside. Which meant that he and Sara were trapped like rats.

"Bad news?" she asked.

"The worst," he responded, studying the room intently. At full speed, he might be able to break through one of the steel-reinforced walls. The trouble was that the room was too small for him to get the speed he needed to break through those walls.

The policemen outside started hammering on the door, shouting orders to the two fugitives to surrender. Sam had no intention of doing that. Not yet, anyway. He was not prepared for this contingency. He had hoped -- prayed, even -- for a few days' respite. Time enough at least to formulate a real plan. It was all well and good to go to a non-extradition country, but how they survived once there was a question he had not yet answered.

"Time for the cavalry to ride," Sam told Sara. "And hope mah hide is tougher than Dr. MacTaggert's walls."

Sara hesitated, still locked in battle mode. Her blue eyes were fierce with berzerker fury, yearning for a fight. Sam could tell that she wanted revenge for being locked in a cage, and any policeman would do. If they stayed, he feared that she would be guilty of more murders.

"Come on," he urged.

The door rattled as someone tried to unlock it.

Sara stalked over to him, a tight grin on her face. "I'll ride you any time, farmboy."

Sam blushed crimson. He could not help it. Even though he saw her really as just a bitter-eyed girl, he knew there was a soul of iron in her. He knew that she was only playing -- that a hard-bitten veteran like herself could never have any interest in a country bumpkin -- even the suggestion made his blood race.

The door opened and men rushed in, guns at the ready and voices raised. Sara rounded on them, her knife in hand, a feral smile on her face. "Don't you know that it's bad manners to barge into a lady's bedroom?"

"Drop your weapon," one of the officers warned.

The tension in the room went up several levels as the two sides faced off. Sam could tell that Sara was not going to go down quietly. The policeman, pitifully few that they had brought, might get in a lucky shot.

There was going to be blood.

Sam did not know what to do. He had no desire for anyone to be hurt, but at the same time, he was loathe to let them take Sara back. The quick, fierce glance she threw at him told him that she was expecting back-up.

Could he betray her?

"That won't be necessary, gentlemen," a cold, clear voice remarked as two new people entered the room.

"Vertigo? Blockbuster?" Sam gasped, completely uncertain what this turn of events meant. What were the Marauders doing here?

"That's Special Agents Maelstrom and Jackhammer to you," the slender woman in the dark suit told him.

Sam was completely confused. The two people before him were easily recognizable, despite the sober dark-suits that had replaced their garish spandex. These two were members of the Marauders, a team of assassins that the X-Men had tangled with.

Neither of the agents had the time or the interest to explain their story to the fugitives. They had both been re-trained and assigned to the task force in charge of dealing with super-powered menaces by the U.S. government in exchange for amnesty.

"You are both under arrest," Blockb-- Jackhammer told them.

"Screw that! I've been itching to get a piece of you two," Sara growled and lunged.

And then pitched forward like a doll with her strings cut.

"Fortunately for her, I was generous and only rendered her unconscious. Do you wish to try my patience, Sam Guthrie?" Maelstrom asked.

Cannonball did not understand. The whole world had gone crazy on him. He was a fugitive from the law, and two Marauders were trying to arrest him in the name of the U.S. government. He could not accept it.

Sam took to the air and barreled at the huge man he knew as Blockbuster. A meaty fist knocked him from the air -- a feat that should have been impossible. Groaning, Sam tried to get to his feet.

"You were warned, Guthrie," Maelstrom hissed.

There was a sudden stabbing pain in his chest and suddenly everything went black for Cannonball. His last sight was that of Sara, her eyes open, staring sightlessly at him.

Jennifer swallowed back bile as her stomach started to churn. A human life was about to be ended. She had saved hundreds -- billions, really -- as the Savage She-Hulk. It appeared, however, that Jennifer Walters could not save even one.

"I'm sorry," she thought as the guards pulled the hood over her client's head. The hood and the electric chair were normally not used in New York. In fact, the device had been installed here in Clinton, New York specially for this day.

The state, in its wisdom, had decided that lethal injection could not be relied on to work on mutant biology.

"And what good is that?" she wondered darkly. "In an hour or so, I'll be home, sorting through junk mail. I lost the case, but I'm not the one who has to pay the price."

She almost stormed out at that point. It was too much for her to handle -- too large of an injustice to be borne. But she did stay, because she had promised. No matter how hard it was turning out to be.

Now, it seemed that every crime in the country was being perpetrated by or upon a mutant.

He was making progress, though, there was no denying that. His agents had finally tracked down the fringe group of the KKK responsible for the death of at least six black mutants. Proving their guilt was going to be a challenge, but he was certain that he would prevail.

They had locked up the FOH fanatics responsible for beating Barbara Dexter to death in a truckstop a few years back. Solving that case had allowed Carlton to sleep a lot easier at nights.

Other cases were proving more difficult -- like the vigilante that was stalking and attacking suspected rapists. Carlton still was unable to get a solid lead on the perpetrator. The victims, for some reason, weren't talking.

The rash of mutant-killings that had suddenly broken out had Carlton deeply concerned. It seemed that people were murdering mutants for no reason at all. Otherwise upstanding citizens were throwing their lives away in random, inexplicable attacks on mutants.

It was aberrant behavior that needed investigating. Unfortunately, the Bureau still did not accept the validity of John Carlton's work. He was unable to get either the manpower or the resources he desperately needed to do his job.

Currently, he was preparing to go to Oregon. He was hoping that he would have more luck prying information out of the tight-lipped citizens of Jon Day than Mayfaire had had. A boy was dead, and for no good reason. Someone would have to answer for it.

"Good morning, sir," Anna Mayfaire greeted him as she stepped into his office.

"Morning," he returned, taking the coffee she brought him with a grateful smile. "What's on the agenda for today?"

Anna Mayfaire, an ice-blonde, sober-faced woman, took a seat in front of his cluttered desk. "The assorted kidnappings, beatings and hoaxes, sir. Senator Dumont has invited you to lunch. McIlwain's sentencing is today."

Brian McIlwain was a mutant who fancied himself something of a Don Juan. Regrettably, he tended to use his mutant telepathic powers to bolster his questionable charms.

"I thought you'd want to see this sir," Anna told him and handed him a case file.

Carlton trusted his assistant. Anything that she handed to him personally had to be of vital importance. He opened the file and scanned its contents. The report was of the young mutant Sara -- a case he was familiar with. Open and shut, from what he had seen.

Then he got to the part about the testimony of the hypno-therapist. "Dear god...she was there," he whispered. "The massacre -- she was there!"

Anna nodded. "The descriptions are too consistent with our own findings to be a ruse."

"Why weren't we contacted when this came up?"

His assistant shrugged, stone-faced. "The local authorities did not want 'Federal interference.' They want blood, sir. A cop was one of the victims. I was reading the 'Post, sir, and they were discussing it after her escape attempt. There was an aside about her psych profile that caught my eye."

Carlton rose to his feet and grabbed his coat. "I've been waiting for years to find an actual witness. I'm not going to let the state of New York kill her. Call the governor -- stop that execution. I'm going to the airport now..."

The clock ticked inexorably onward, minute by minute, oblivious to the life that it was bringing to an end.

The seat of her chair was being slowly destroyed by her clenching hands. She was having a very hard time controlling her temper. If it got any worse, she would have to leave, promise or no promise.

The lieutenant governor finished his speech with a trite and wholly unconvincing, "May God have mercy on your soul."

Jennifer gave up hoping for a miracle in that instant. She had been harboring a small bit of optimism that the governor would call and stop the execution. The governor was on vacation, though, and she knew from personal experience (all the fruitless arguments...) that he would not make the phone call unless God himself told him to.

Three non-descript, solemn-faced men stepped up to the switches set into the wall and took hold of the levers. None of them would ever know which one was the one to throw the fatal switch. A mercy on their consciences. Jennifer knew of countries where no such niceties were observed.

A cell phone beeped.

Lt. Governor Mathews took it from an aide and spoke briefly with the caller. Jennifer could not hear what was said, though she could tell the conversation seemed serious. Mathews nodded slowly and took down some notes.

The warden paused, waiting.

The fateful hour came upon them.

Please... she thought desperately.

The lieutenant governor turned the phone off and handed it back to his aide. The warden looked at him questioningly. Mathews nodded, giving him a thumbs-up and a cheerful smile.

"Damn it," Jennifer cursed inwardly.

Three levers were pulled down simultaneously and thousands of volts coursed through Sam Guthrie's body.

Jennifer shuddered as his screams echoed through the execution chamber. It was mercifully brief, though, and soon there was only an awful silence.

Sam Guthrie, who had been convicted for the cold-blooded murder of three prison guards during the break-out -- despite his pleas that the deaths had been accidental -- died in the electric chair.

His powers had constituted the special circumstances need by the prosecution to push for the death penalty. His status as a rogue mutant had not helped his case any. Even though many had come forward and defended his character, he had been consigned to Death Row.

Jennifer got up and left. She had an appointment with Paige Guthrie, Sam's sister. Together they would escort the body back to Kentucky where funeral services had already been arranged. That is, his body would be released once the final atrocity had been committed.

This had been the worst part and the most unbelievable. On the witness stand, under oath, Sam had been asked if he believed that routine means of execution would work on him. Most people would have lied. In fact, had he not sworn on the Bible that he would tell the truth, even Sam Guthrie would have lied.

But lying under such an oath was worse than death, and so the noble young man had confessed about his suspicions that he was an External.

The court had scoffed, of course, but not so much so that they had not decided upon a very severe and somewhat illegal course of action.

Sam's body was even now on the way to the morgue to have his head removed post-mortem.

Jennifer wondered if Marrow knew yet. She was certain that the execution was all over the news (dear god, if she saw a reporter, there would be another death today...) and even if Sara was not near a television, she had probably been told. Darkly, the green-hued lawyer envisioned Sara being dragged screaming from the recreation room right now. As counsel for both defendants, Jennifer had understood how important each of them was to each other.

It was not a visit that she wanted to make, but she would. She owed that much to Sara and to Sam. For now, though, she had to try and console a heart-broken girl waiting outside the prison -- waiting for the final word.

Jennifer had, after all, made a promise to Sam that she would do so.

Nathan Summers, aka Cable, had not been able to be with his friend at the last for any number of legal and safety issues. So, instead, he had taken up a post outside and waited.

He saw the hearse leaving now, though, so he guessed it was time to go.

Cable had wanted to rescue Sam more than anything. It would have been a simple job for a man of his skills and talents. In fact, Roberto DaCosta -- a friend of Sam's since the New Mutants -- had been chafing at the bit to go and break the young man out.

But Cable knew Sam well enough that he might not appreciate being rescued.

And in fact, a message from Sam conveyed by Tabitha Smith -- the turbulant X-Factor member called Meltdown -- had told the two hot-headed men that Sam was intent on taking the punishment meted out to him. His guilt over the deaths -- accidental though they were -- would only be expunged through whatever justice the state deemed necessary, or so Guthrie had told them.

It had made Nathan sick -- and proud. Sam Guthrie had lived and died a soldier. He hoped, when his time came, that he met it with as much courage.

"Nothing new," he murmured.

"At all?"

"She knows about Guthrie. She...wasn't very talkative."

Carlton had succeeded in his bid to stop Sara's execution, but only because the state had found another mutant to fry. Guthrie he had not been able to save. Truth be told, he had not tried very hard. John did not use his governmental powers carelessly. Sara he needed, so he had gotten her sentence commuted to life in prison. Sam...was responsible for the deaths of three prison guards in an unprovoked attack.

Justice -- as defined by the laws of the state of New York -- had been done. It was not Carlton's place to pass judgment on whether or not it had been just.

"Let's get back to the office, Anna. We're done here."

"Right sir."