She didn't think she believed in God after it started.

Her mother never had, but Neopagan rites and Wiccan rituals had taught Emma that everyone needed to believe in *something*, no matter how intangible. So she left her mother to her chanting and ventured into the world to find the answer to her prayers.

Instead, she found Adam, and the glory of Mutant X.

And for a while she held on to her beliefs of a greater power, though it became more and more difficult as the months wore on and she felt the pain, the suffering, and the delight in that suffering of her fellow man. She searched for God on the internet, in churches and the hearts of parishioners; occasionally, only very, very occasionally, she borrowed a little faith when she had nowhere else to turn.

Her well dried up when the GSA were government sanctioned, and she felt fear and frustration from all, but faith was in short supply.

"Adam," she said, as the net closed in on them, "We have to go. We can't stay here and let them round us up and brand us like cattle. The only way to survive is to run."

Adam sighed and set his laptop aside. "What you're feeling is perfectly natural," he said. "Fear is one of the most basic human emotions, and yours is heightened by your empathic ability. It's understandable, but Emma - you can't allow yourself to be governed by it. We have a duty to fight for those who can't, and for many of the mutants out there, we're their last hope."

"We won't be much of a beacon of hope if we're dead," she argued, and he frowned.

"We don't know what the outcome will be, but we have to try."

I *do* know what will happen, she wanted to say. I know the way Brennan can sense a thunderstorm and Shalimar blood. Every particle of my being screams that this is the outcome; yet I sound the alarm and no-one listens, I tell you what I know to be true, and you don't hear me.

She bit down on her anger, choked down her bitterness. "They're evil," she said forcefully, and Adam replied,

"They're men. Not monsters."

It was a repetition of a thousand other conversations that all began and ended the same way: Adam behaving as though Emma were an overindulged child begging for another sweet, while she begged for their very lives.

Her frustration mounted and she longed to, to - To what? Make him feel what she felt? Make him *understand*? She couldn't, could not do that to another person. Take away their free will, impose her own emotions on someone... It was wrong, immoral. It went against everything Mutant X stood for, and yet... Wouldn't it be better for them to lose those scruples and remain standing at the end of the day?

Oh, God, she thought. I need guidance, I need help. If she opened herself to the world outside, what would she feel? Terror, anger, resentment? Hatred, like a white-hot spike through the heart?

"Adam," she whispered. Please help me. and a voice echoed softly through her mind: Too late, too late. No one can help you now.

No one else... She swallowed down the tears that wanted to fall and focussed on regaining control, on reaching within herself to find her center, as she'd been taught. She'd never really believed that balancing her chakras and finding her inner power were anything but tools for self-delusion, and that hadn't really changed, but that search for self had taught her something she'd forgotten somewhere along the way: Emma deLauro had no need for belief in another being to save her; she was her own savior, and that was belief enough.

"Emma?" Adam asked, steadying her, and she looked on him with regret and pity, because there was no other choice.

"I'm sorry," she told him, and could see the questions beginning to form in his eyes as she cleared her mind as best she could and - pushed.

He fell to his knees under the force of her will, and when she helped him to his feet, asked, "What do we have to do, Adam?"

~*~

"We have to run," Brennan said, and the others looked solemn but acquiescent.

"It's the only way," Jesse agreed, and Shalimar turned to Emma.

"What do you think, Emma?" she asked, and Emma's smile was gentle as she placed her hand on Shalimar's and squeezed reassuringly.

"It *is* the only way," she said, eyes resting on each member of her team, on their blank faces and slightly glassy eyes.

"The only way."
 

~end~