Webisode: Calm Before the Storm

Lenna starred at Rome, was he right? Shouldn’t she have used the book? She knew it was a trick, she knew she was dealing with a demon but it was just too tempting to use it…

“No I had no idea it was you Rome, it took me a long time to realize I was talking to Andre and he was in your body. Only because Lenna mentioned it once that you were possessed and I put one and one together.” Georgie said looked at Lenna, she knew they had to talk about their past but she couldn’t deal with that right now it would be too much.

Tex looked from Rome to Lenna to Georgie. “Did you ever hear about the legendary trio?”

Everyone looked at her. “What?” Lenna asked confused what this had to do with their situation.

“Three hunters, three women, three mothers they just did a few hunts together but they always stuck together one helped the other until one day they never spoke again, they denied they ever knew each other. No one knows what happened but something did. I thought you knew Lenna but me and your mom we always had a close friendship, well but even this broke up after I got the last letter it must be after the breakup of the legendary trio.” Tex went through a few stacks of paper in one of the drawers of the kitchen. She showed them a picture an old picture of five children. In the middle was a blonde girl smiling the little laughing brunette while a blonde boy stood near them smirking at the blonde girl. While on each side another boy was standing both blonde both looking like they didn’t like seeing the three children between them together.
Lenna stepped closer still confused who the legendary trio was. “That’s me and Georgie, and that at the left corner is Nick, but those two boys I don’t know.”

But when she turned around and saw Rome’s face, she knew who the boys were.

“Wait are you telling me my mom and Blondie’s mom and… Rome’s they knew each other?” Lenna starred at the picture. She actually started to feel sick.

“You never knew?” Tex asked.

Lenna shook her head. This was too much she ducked away from a few hands that tried to get a hold of her, and she ran away. Not enough did she found out that her parents were hunter but they were famous hunter? Her best friends were having those powers and Richard had been dead, the list went on endlessly. She wished she could create a bubble around her letting nothing come near her. She didn’t care how it looked that she ran away from her friends but she just needed some time to digest. Time to think, and which place was better as the library. So there she was sitting in the corner so long ago with Rome when he taught her the first time how to clean his Desert Eagle. All this seemed so long ago. What would they do when SWORD gets them? She was actually scared to think about SWORD, what they would with them. Lenna didn’t do anything she just stared into space letting her mind wander, trying to figure out when SWORD found out about her, when it all went out of control.

Rome nodded. He was absorbing the information, he just wasn't thinking about it.

When Lenna left, the meeting was pretty much over. Nothing more needed to be said.

The shit had just hit the fan, and apparently--to Rome, who as much as he disliked the idea of Fate, he believed in it--it had been gearing up to do so since they were all kids.

After Lenna left, they all stayed silent, unmoving, not making eye contact. Richard, looking a little uncomfortable, left next.

Then Georgie left.

Finally, with an ancient-sounding sigh, Tex patted his arm, looking at him with more sympathy than Rome would have guessed she was capable of, and also left the kitchen.

Rome stayed where he was for a few minutes longer before standing abruptly. Surprisingly, the picture of his brother hurt more than thoughts of his mom. He had kind of known she was a hunter for a while, since Andre--

Presumably in the time it took to blink, Mariane had pulled a handgun from her purse, cocked it, and aimed it at his heart, taking on an aggressive stance he'd only ever seen her assume when a teacher had accused him of cheating on a math test.

"You're not my son. And I'm going to give you three seconds to get out of him before I blast you so full of holy lead you're gonna be Satan's paperweight for the rest of eternity."

"Well, it's lovely to see you again, too, Mariane."

"One...two...."

Now Romulus noticed that mother's hands were trembling faintly, and tears threatened to blur her vision. Okay, that was good: she wasn't some sort of terminator or cylon skinjob. She did have some explaining to do--about why she had the gun, how she knew who this demonic frakker was, and how the hell she got off calling bullets "holy"--but that could wait...

--since Andre had made him murder her. But he did not like being reminded of his brother. His own brother, his twin, his best freaking friend who was still alive and didn't bother to even call him on his birthday. On their birthday. So it wasn't like he forgot.

Rome had meant to go back to the shooting range to take out some of his anger, but his feet led him upstairs, to his room, instead, almost without him realizing it. Apparently, he wasn't angry.

The room was big, and the bed was King-sized. He and Rawson had bunked down there together (they had grown up sharing each others' space so much of the time that that sort of thing really didn't faze them); he and Lenna had shared this bed, too--again, perfectly platonically. In fact, it was weird looking at a bed that for once did not recall sexual exploits. He'd have to fix that.

Maybe if Georgie was free later.

There was a small dresser next to the bed. These were mostly full of electronics, a few magazines, and clothes. But there was a package in the bottom drawer, beneath a pair of jeans that were too small for him. It was brown and small, and rather heavy, and Rome's name and Georgie's uncle's address written unmistakably in Rawson's handwriting.

Raws hadn't forgotten their birthday.

But Rome had been too busy, too pissed at him at the time, to open it.

He was, apparently, right now, still too pissed at his stupid, freaking, AWOL, asshole brother, who didn't even care about him, to open it.

Only now he was crying, too. He threw the package back into the the drawer, kicked it shut, and then rolled over on his bed and curled up in on himself with his back to the door, and stayed there until it was dark.

Georgie had gone straight back into her room and this time she finally opened her mom’s journal and read it. She had to find out what kind of power had been passed on among the women in her family, and if she was affected too. Obviously there must have been something that caught SWORD’s attention.
Georgie flipped through the first pages until she found what she was looking for. Josephine Gilmore described it as ‘ESP’, also known as Extrasensory perception. It could almost be described as some sort of sixth sense, especially regarding human emotions. People with ESP were able to read the aura of others as well as getting a sense of their emotions, no matter how deeply hidden they were. Josephine also mentioned that there were different levels and it often took some time for this particular power to develop to its fullest until it reached the last level. ESP made it possible to scan someone’s aura for emotions, and so far almost every generation of women in Georgie’s family had been born with this gift. For some of them it had developed earlier than for others, such as in Josephine’s case, who had started to feel others’ emotions when she was in elementary school. In Georgie’s case it stayed hidden for a while longer, not until a few months ago had she started to feel this change, but ever since then it developed steadily. She hadn’t taken it very seriously though, not until today when she realized that this gift had apparently caught the attention of SWORD.
Georgie took a deep breath and continued reading. At least she finally managed to go through her mother’s journal without hesitating any longer.

Somehow everyone stayed away from the other as if they were afraid to face the other’s powers. Lenna was sitting in her room and went through her mom’s journal, and the few pictures they had taken. Lenna is pulling on most of them a face, especially the ones with Rome, Georgie and her. It felt all so long ago. Somehow she missed those early days, when they were still a team and not when everyone tried to be on their own. They were a family and somehow those files have changed everything.
It took Lenna a few weeks to knock at Georgie’s door. She was shy and scared.

“Come in.” Came Georgie’s voice muffled and gentle through the door. When Lenna was standing in the open door frame Georgie smiled. She knew it was Lenna long before she had knocked at the door and she didn’t need to tell her how she felt.

“Hey.” Lenna mumbled.

“Hey.”

“Crazy February is already over.”

“Brownie, are you here to talk about the date.” Georgie blow on her nails she just had put fresh nail polish.

“No I’m not. I feel like it’s been ages ago we talk how are you doing… Dordie?” Lenna grinned cheeky at her best friend. “I found this in the box of mom’s stuff. Pictures of you and me… I think I remember the time I visited you. Well sort of. I… Georgie I think I had you as my invisible friend. You were dressed all pink and you had a knife and fairy wings. And when I got older I forgot this special fairy but the feeling of having a best friend stayed. It never left me and when I talked to other kids I miss this best friend but I didn’t know where it was. I could never explain it but now that I see those pictures and… there is a film of us, of the weekend we visited you. Um Georgie you maybe wanna watch this we me? And just so you know mom said in her journal that I talked about you none stop. And there was this song, and I always get sad because I felt well someone was missing in my live. Here listen.” Lenna got out her phone and after several minutes of Lenna trying to figure out how her phone worked she found the song she had downloaded earlier –another moment she missed Rome even when he was just down the hall but she didn’t feel like bothering him with a silly problem like downloading a song- but she had managed after several hours, and now the song was playing from her phone.

Georgie smiled when she heard the first seconds of the song. She recognized it immediately despite the fact that she hadn’t heard it in ages. In all those years she came across this song once in the radio, and it reminded her of something but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. Now she finally knew why it was so familiar to her.
“I can remember you too”, she said after they were done listening to the song. “But you were called a different name back then…”

“Elle.”

Georgie nodded. “Yes, it was Elle. That’s why I didn’t recognize you again when we first met in Gallup. I mean, the last time I had seen you, you were a toddler who couldn’t pronounce the letter ‘g’ and you were talking about Peter Pan, so of course I didn’t immediately recognize you when we met after all those years.”

“It’s weird, isn’t it? If you think about it, we knew each other all this time”, Lenna said.

“Honestly, it’s all weird. The fact that you and I knew each other since we were little, or that all our mothers had a connection…And I’m not quite sure what to think about it.”

“What do you mean?”

“If it’s actually good that we are all connected. There seems to be some sort of plan behind it, a plan that we didn’t choose, and now look at us; some strange agency is chasing after us.” Georgie was quiet for a moment. “Well, at least I got to know all of you.”

Lenna smiled. “Yeah, agreed.”

“By the way, you might not tell people you had an ‘imaginary friend’ when you were younger, people get confused by crazy kids like you”, she said teasingly.

Lena grinned, she pulled out a few pictures of her and Georgie. "Georgie did you really have a knife under your pillow when you were Little?"

"Someone had to protect you from the shadow outside." Georgie smiled when she saw the pictures.

"It's so weird if your uncle would have known that your parents were my godparents I would have grown up like you. In a big house..."

"... and with manners." Georgie laughed.

"I do have manners, sometimes, in a way. Oh look Auntie Phenie." Lenna had found a piture of her and Georgie's mom. "Do you miss them?"

"Yeah." Georgie looked a little sad at thepicture of Lenna and her own mom.

"Oh look there is a video. You wanna watch it and see us in little?" Lenna was really excited, she had like one video from her and her faily and that was still safe at Bobby's she had planned to one day get it back but it never never happened and now that he thought she was dead it was impossible ot get it unless she would ask one of her friends to get it for her but it is not said that Bobby would give them the video.

BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!

Rome was in the shooting range, where he tried to spend every day. In all honesty it was harder to keep him away: he limited himself to about an hour or 300 rounds, whichever ended first, because he didn't want to look like a freak.

Freak. Poor choice of words.

Tex was kind of...perfect. When he had first gone to her--about a week or so after the crap had hit the fan--to ask her about his mom's hunting days, she had been clear, concise, and to the point, and just sentimental enough that he could cry about it later without embarrassing himself. The way Tex described Mariane as a hunter reminded Rome a lot of his brother. Rome always knew he was more like his dad, while Rawson had always taken after mom: the strong, silent, bad-ass-mother-fucker type.

Which was why he needed to practice. Raws wasn't around to protect him. He was still alive, sure, but he had--well, chosen his own path, Rome guessed. A path that didn't involve Rome, despite 20 years of inseparability, despite being twins. Rome liked to think that maybe Raws had gotten into some really deep dark shit, because as scary as that was it was a better answer than that his brother had simply forgotten about him.

So Rome trained. He actually went for runs longer than was necessary to keep him at his usual good-enough-for-a-hookup caliber (not that he was getting any more tail than occasional low-lying forays into town allowed, but still). He lifted weights. He sparred a bit with Richard, but really, the guy was kind of old, and more with Georgie, but seriously, a girl, so mainly Rome punched a bag by himself.

Rome didn't say anything, but his dreams were getting worse.

No one really noticed how but suddenly it was March. They had spent over two months at the Safehouse and after a little fallen out they grew stronger than ever as the weird patchwork family they became.

“How can I dice onions, isn’t a die suppose to be all sides the same size?” Lenna said sniffling from the onions. Rome chuckled. “Yeah well just cut the onions in small pieces without cutting off your fingers.”

“Hey I would never cut my… ouch.” Lenna put her finger in her mouth where she just cut herself.

“You were saying?” Rome asked laughing.

“Oh shut up, you made me cut the onions on purpose so I’m the one that is crying.” Lenna tried to sound angry but she was widely grinning. “And how come all that Georgie has to do is set the table?”
Lenna more chopped the onions more randomly with just one hand so that she couldn’t cut herself a second time than proper cutting them into dice.

"Dammit, Lenna!" Rome laughed, whisking the knife out of her hand and shooing her away, chopping the last of the onions and sliding them into the frying pan. "Can't stand the heat, get outta Hell's Kitchen!"

It was Sunday, and they were having Dinner.

Rome had initiated, had insisted on it, needed it. He had gone to the store early and had picked up enough food for at least twelve armies, and had started off the afternoon baking cookies. The smell was slowly luring everyone to him, at which point he cheekily told them he hoped they had no plans, because they were having Sunday Dinner whether they liked it or not. They couldn't say no. Actually, they probably couldn't say no to the apron.

Now the mountain of cookies waited on top of the refrigerator where they were most easily defensible. Lenna had already stolen one, but he had whacked her good with the wooden spoon, so it was all right.

Tex had scoffed at him and been on her way, but she promised to come back. Richard had smiled and nodded, mumbled an excuse but also promised to return by 6:00. Georgie and Lenna, when they found him, offered to stay and help, but it was becoming clear that Rome's painful duty as the only domestic in the household was to single-handedly build the most epic of meals.

"All I can say is, I am not doing any dishes," Rome laughed as he flipped potatoes in a frying pan so high that they almost hit the ceiling before he caught them back in the pan. He added spices willy-nilly, picking up hot food and shoving it in his mouth to taste. "Especially because--" he tried, with his mouth full, as he flipped the green beans with as much flourish as he had the potatoes, "you are about to experience Chef Remington in action. I am making my specialty: Stuffed pork tenderloins with a red wine gravy; spicy papas for a bit of a kick; long-stemmed green beans with lemon and garlic; a cranberry-almond rice pilaf; and caesar salad with fresh parmesean."

The girls stared at him, open-mouthed. He was pretty sure Lenna was drooling. Georgie was calculating how much give there was on her jeans. Rome just managed to restrain his cackling.

"What's on top of the refrigerator?" Tex asked, coming down the stairs.

"Oh, cookies," Rome said dismissively, though truth be told he was a cookie-baking god. "Glass of wine for you, Tex?"

"Sure, hun," she said, accepting the glass he was already pouring. Georgie and Lenna's cheeks were already pink from the glass they'd had each, and Rome hummed with delight.

"So we got five on the pork, and the veggies are done. G, you wanna set the salad out for me, beautiful? Thanks. And does anyone know where the hell our Richie Rich got to?"

“Not hell. Just out for a Sunday drive,” Richard replied from where he’d been leaning casually against the opposite doorframe. His eye’s drifted to the fridge. “Though I should have kept quiet and nabbed a cookie first.”

“Don’t you dare,” warned Rome, brandishing a spoon in a comically threatening manner. Richard put up his hands in mock surrender.

“Ok, the cookies are out of bounds. I’ll settle for a beer.” Richard headed to the fridge, Rome watching him in case Richard pulled a sudden grab for the cookies, but he just took a beer from the fridge as he’d said. “I’ll be back in a moment. Don’t want to swamp your cooking in dust from the road.” Richard headed off to his room for a clean set of cloths.

After a few minutes he returned to the dining room where the girls were finishing off setting up the table and Rome was triumphantly escorting the main course to its place on the table. Richard gave Rome a hard look, with humour and a slight smirk behind it. “I had no idea you were such a domestic goddess.”

“I’m quite surprised myself, I have to admit”, Georgie said, but the moment that triumphant grin crossed Rome’s face, she cleared her throat and added: “Don’t even think that your cooking skills impress women so much that they all line up to sleep with you.” She raised her eyebrows as she unfolded the napkin and placed it on her lap.

“Well, it’s not like it hasn’t worked before.” Rome grinned.

“What a revelation”, Georgie replied dryly, then shot Lenna a strict side-glance. “Elbows.”

“Hm?” Lenna looked up, her mouth already full.

“Take your elbows off the table.”

Lenna just glared at her. “You’re kidding, right?”

“And don’t speak with your mouth full.”

Lenna rolled her eyes, but since Georgie still gave her that ‘You-better-do-what-I’m-telling-you’-look, she gave in and took her elbows off the table. “You happy?”

“Yes.” She didn’t admit it, but Rome sure as hell knew how to cook. Not that she would say it, otherwise she would only flatter his ego, which was already huge in the first place.

Lenna helped herself to more wine. Everyone seemed to have a good time, it been so weird the past months but now when Lenna looked around she saw a family. Laughing and making jokes. A part of her wished they could stay here forever in this tiny safe bubble, but she knew the bubble was too small for all of them.

“I’m glad you didn’t make me wear a dress Blondie.” Lenna giggled they wine had made her tipsy.

“Well I tried but you ignored me as usual.” Georgie winked at Lenna. The girls were teasing each other in a loving sisterly way and enjoyed it. It was there way of showing how much they loved each other. But not just the girls were having fun all of them, Richard and Rome were talking manly with each other while Tex watched them all, and a tiny smile appeared in her face. She didn’t see stranger anymore but a family, a real family and nothing could change this.

“Is there a reason you can’t sit still unless you’re firing at something?”

Alex stopped tapping his foot in the air and looked up from the little block of wood he was slowly but surely whittling down into a wolf. He smirked at Holyfield before continuing.

“And deprive myself of these scintillating conversations?” he answered. He knew it was still too early to smart-mouth his superiors when said superior hooked a foot under a chair of his leg and flipped it over backwards, sending Alex toppling to the floor in a heap. After he’d caught the breath back that had been knocked out of him, Alex rolled off the chair and stood to right it, just managing to sit back down before those they were meeting showed up. He watched Justice and the newcomer with detached curiosity, and then flicked his knife closed and shoved it back in his pocket, stuffing the half-carved wolf in after it.

“You’re early, Colt,” Justice remarked, no doubt a comment on his usual style of showing up five minutes late if he thought he could get away with it. He’d shown up late to the promised “let’s hunt Alex Colt” training session by a full half-hour, which, he reasoned, was probably why he was still in the dog house. That and the cost of a new sniper rifle, since he’d busted his by accidentally chucking it off the roof back in Boston. Holyfield and Justice had not been pleased… But they were never pleased with anything, it seemed. Even, apparently, his showing up on time to a meeting.

You know me, Command, I aim to please, he thought dryly, but said nothing in response to the jab. Rather, he turned his attention to the man who’d walked in with Justice. He screamed “I could kick your ass with both hands tied behind my back and a broken leg” from miles off. It was so obvious that Alex was almost sure he couldn’t really be serious. Holyfield saw him sizing the man up and dropped several files on the table to distract his attention. Alex glanced to them curiously, and recognized the names. He’d already seen those files enough times to memorize them, but if Holyfield and Justice had seen fit to bring them, that meant they were going to talk about them. Probably extensively, until Alex was ready to pull his hair out at the roots out of sheer boredom. He should have brought one of his guns. Surely there was something in here to use as target practice… His eyes went automatically to the walls, looking for something to throw wadded up balls of paper at, and then back to the folders for a piece of paper.

“I believe, gentlemen, that we have some business to attend to?” Holyfield asked, and sat down at the table, while Justice and the new guy took their own seats. No, you just like the sound of your own voice. Get to the point… Alex thought as Holyfield passed around the files. “R, here, says he can give us another shot at these targets,” Holyfield continued, his manner all business, but he shot Alex a look. Alex was too busy trying not to laugh outright at the newcomer’s oh-so-mysterious secret agent name. This had to be a joke. Were they just seeing if he would behave himself even when they gave him every opportunity to misbehave? Was there a hidden camera somewhere so they could see if he was making faces at this nonsense while they weren’t looking? He glanced to Holyfield and Justice, but they looked very serious, and not overly like they were testing him. There was none of that sneaky watchfulness he’d have expected of them, anyway. They looked at him when they realized he was staring, and he wiped the half-grin off his face as he realized that R, too, was staring at him. And if this wasn’t a big joke- which he was beginning to think it wasn’t- that might mean this guy was marginally more capable of kicking his butt than he was giving him credit for. Maybe. Alex stole another glance at the black-clad man, and found he still couldn’t take him seriously. Dude was just trying way too hard.

“Sorry. Please, do continue,” he said, leaning back in his chair so he could cross one knee over the other. They all looked at him for a split second longer and Holyfield went back to talking.

“R, this is our sniper, Alexander Colt. He can hit the targets from anywhere, if you can get him a clear shot,” he looked at Alex, and then tipped his head to the side in partial negation of his previous statement, “For the most part.” Alex frowned at this.

“Look, I told you, I didn’t miss. The guy tripped,” he said stubbornly, reiterating his excuse for what felt like the millionth time. Also for the millionth time, Holyfield and Justice both gave him a look that said they believed him as far as they could throw him. And since they were, as far as he was concerned, desk jockeys who sat back and let the rest of them do the real work, they couldn’t have thrown him far. He pushed back lazily from the table and started wandering around the small meeting room.

“That is, if you’re certain you can bring us the targets. You understand we do not wish for the general population to know of this. That would be problematic,” Justice spoke up, looking at R, who just looked back at him, his face set in the most impressive expression of disinterest Alex thought he’d ever seen.

“Oh, I’ll get you your targets. They’ll come without a fight. If your… expert… here can hit the broad side of a barn, you’ll have them without a problem,” the man responded. Alex glared at the man’s tone- the guy hadn’t even seen him shoot!- and stopped pacing around the room.

“Look, buddy, maybe all those steroids you’re on’ve shrunken your brain, but where I come from, it’s not smart to insult the guy who can shoot you in the ass from a block away,” he snapped from where he’d paused just next to Justice’s chair.

He was certainly surprised when, in one fluid movement, the new guy had risen from him chair and slung him back at the wall, where he held him by the front of his shirt. Alex had to stand on his toes to avoid choking, wide-eyed in shock. Rather than scaring him a little and dropping him, R forced him to stand taller to avoid further choking, while Alex glanced a little frantically to Justice and Holyfield. His two bosses were watching with almost identically dispassionate expressions on their faces.

“Uh, guys?” he squeaked (and then cursed himself for squeaking- squeaking!) and Justice finally sighed.

“He’s a pain-in-the-ass smart-mouth, but he’s the best we have. If you could refrain from killing my agent until after he’s done his job…” the man hinted blandly, and R dropped Alex so suddenly that the sniper nearly tripped onto his face. He glared at all three of the men, busy stashing that “after he’s done his job” comment away in case he needed to seriously avoid this ‘R’ guy after this mission was over.

“If you insist,” R growled, and turned from Alex dismissively, and then turned and left, followed closely by Justice and Holyfield as they left Alex to mutter over his wounded dignity.