Eye of the Beholder

Author's Notes I: Sorry this chapter's a little shorter than normal, but you'll understand why when you get to the end. One little thing, Fight and Flight are mine, please don't use them without my permission. A big thank you goes to onewing, Anon, Michael, Cougar, Dragonpink and blue_lioness for your reviews.

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“Are you sure?” he asks, fixing her with a piercing blue eyed stare.

“Yes, sir,” she replies, trying to keep her focus on his face despite the pain. “You had just left and I could feel someone...in the computer. I know it sounds crazy, but it's the only way I can describe this sense that someone was in there, looking around. If I had to take a guess, I'd say that there's a mutant out there who can go into the Internet...sort of like what they did in The Matrix.”

“This isn't a movie,” he points out, a steel gray eyebrow arching up at her.

“I know, but that's the only way I can describe what I think happened,” she moans as the throbbing in her head finally starts to lessen thanks to the pain pills.

“What do you think this...person...was after?” he asks.

“I think he was after our site,” she tells him. “I saw the files flashing across the screen and when it got to the main page for our site, that's when the computer blew up. I barely managed to start turning away when it went up.”

“Hmm, it sounds like someone took exception to our little site,” he muses as he leans back into his chair while the young woman across the desk from him tries to avoid rubbing her hand over her half shaved head. “When you are feeling better, I want you to check to see if any of the FOH sites have come down. I also want you to check to see if there are any other sites that are dedicated McCoy and his Sapien girlfriend and see if they're still up or not. I am most curious to if this was just a random act by some mutant or an intentional attack.”

“But I don't have a computer, sir,” she reminds him.

“Don't worry, you'll have the best on the market,” he assures her.

“But where will I set it up?” she inquires. “The room I was using was badly damaged.”

“Fight and Flight are working on getting your office back into order,” he answers.

“I don't mean to question you, sir, but Fight strikes me as someone who'd sooner put hole in a wall then to patch it,” she quietly states.

“Never fear, Flight is keeping his brother in check,” he responds with a smile. “Now, go enjoy the rest of your Christmas.”

“Won't you be joining us, sir?” she asks as she gets up from her seat.

“All in good time, my dear,” he answers while he looks across his office to the wall with various pictures clipped from the newspaper. “I need to think about this new turn of events and whether or not this mutant is a friend of McCoy's or someone who simply hates the Friends of Humanity.”

“What's the difference?” she questions as she pauses in her journey to the exit.

“Well, if they simply hate the FOH enough to attack their sites, then we have a potential ally whom we may have use of,” he replies pleasantly before dropping his voice down into a growl and his eyes narrowing as he glares at the pictures on the wall. “But if this person is a friend of McCoy's, then we have a new enemy who will have to be dealt with.”

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It seems like time has simply stopped and Hank has always assumed 'a deafening silence' to be nothing more than a foolish cliché that is best ignored, or, better yet, forgotten. The quiet following Annie's slap across Amanda's face is one where one can quite literally hear a pin drop, as if no one dares to breathe. In the time it takes for the shock of Annie's attack to set in and his mind contemplating the absolute silence that follows it, Beast surges forward in a pure, hot rage.

The only reason Annie doesn't find herself immediately slammed into a wall is because Amanda stands between the two of them. He quickly wraps an arm around Amanda's waist and moves her to the side just as he steps towards Annie, uttering a low threatening growl from deep within his throat. Annie snarls back just as Mike grabs her by an arm and then drags her back into the dinning room, slamming the door behind them.

While a few moments ago it seemed like time had stop, it now starts up again with chaotic results. Stuart starts yelling at Hank, Cathy starts yelling at Amanda, Paul runs off and the twins start crying. Beast's first instinct is to protect his mate and to that end, he wraps his other arm around her, backing up a step as a growl that's more felt than heard resonates through his chest.

“Too tight,” Amanda gasps as she tries to push Hank's arms way from her middle and a second later she can feel his body shudder.

“I'm sorry,” he murmurs next to her ear as he quickly loosens his hold on her and she immediately takes a deep breath. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah, I'm just peachy,” she grumbles as he gently turns her around and has a look at her face.

“Get your hands off of my daughter,” Stuart all but yells at Hank.

“I just want to make sure she's alright,” Hank calmly explains as he delicately takes Amanda's face in his hands and turns it so he can see where Annie hit her.

“I said don't touch her!” Stuart shouts as he grabs Hank's arm and tries to pull it away from Amanda only to find that he can't budge the appendage.

“Give it a rest, Dad,” Amanda growls, fighting the urge to just run away from these people she has the misfortune to be related to and never come back.

“Don't you talk to your father like that, young lady,” Cathy orders as she steps closer and waves a hand towards Hank. “Because of him, Mike had to drag your sister off and hide her. He was going to attack her! I must say, I can't approve of you dating him any more.”

“Fortunately for me, that isn't up to you,” Amanda retorts as Hank softly runs a finger tip across her cheek and she gives an involuntary wince at the sudden pain. “Ouch.”

“My apologies,” Hank says as he finally releases her face. “Annie's nails scratched you and they broke the skin. You should clean that. I do find it most interesting that her nails are sharp enough to scratch you like that. It almost looks like claw marks.”

“What did you expect from a catty little...?” Amanda starts.

“Amanda Rachel Simon!” Cathy gasps in horror and shock.

“What?” Amanda nearly snaps.

“How dare you use such language?” Cathy demands, a horrified look on her face.

“I was going to say 'witch',” Amanda grumbles as she turns towards the stairs.

“That's not very nice,” Hank says, his voice indicating he's attempting to return the good humor to the situation. “I happen to know several witches and they're very nice people.”

“Witches are sinners and condemned by the Lord,” Stuart states as he glares at Amanda. “Annie is not a sinner.”

“So much for being non-judgmental,” Hank mutters to himself.

“Keep telling yourself that, Dad,” Amanda retorts as she starts up the steps. “I'm going to wash these scratches little miss 'non-sinner' gave me.”

“Fine, you do that,” Cathy says. “I hope your happy with the chaos you've caused..”

“If Amanda is to be blamed for this...'chaos', I am curious as to what you would call what Annie just did to Amanda,” Hank muses out loud as Amanda spins around to face her mother, her mouth already open with her retort.

“This is a family matter and doesn't concern you,” Cathy stiffly tells Hank as she glares at him.

“Perhaps I have over stayed my welcome,” Hank says with his ire rising and Beast growling in the back of his mind, it's becoming very difficult for him to maintain his calm.

“If you're leaving, then so am I,” Amanda states and turns back towards the steps again.

“NO!” the twins cry out in fear.

Startled, the adults turn towards the girls as they launch themselves at Hank and latch their arms around his middle.

“Please don't go, Hank,” Bethany begs.

“We're sorry we took your Twinkies,” Beverly sobs.

“Girls, come here,” Cathy orders the twins, but they just hold onto Hank tighter, burying their faces into his shirt and their tears start to soak his sweater.

Cubs sad, Beast whines.

“It's alright, girls,” Hank softly assures the girls, patting their backs. “It was just a misunderstanding.”

“See what you've caused?” Cathy accuses, glaring at her daughter.

“Right, and their mother going psycho had nothing to do with it,” Amanda snaps back, stepping back down off of the stairs.

“Speaking of which, once Annie's calmed down, you will apologize to her,” Cathy demands. “And you will not be going with Hank when he leaves.”

“Excuse me!?” Amanda yells. “I'm sitting there playing Scrabble with Mike and Hank when the Wicked Witch of the East comes storming in, accuses me of sneaking sugar to her kids, of which I'm innocent and then smacks me when I try to find out why the kids got into something that didn't belong to them and I'm supposed to apologize to her!?”

“What is she supposed to think?” Cathy snaps. “You're always sneaking junk food to the kids.”

“But I've never hidden it outside of my room before,” Amanda heatedly reminds her mother.

“That doesn't matter, you will apologize for antagonizing your sister and that's that,” Cathy firmly states.

“Are you going to make her apologize for slapping me?” Amanda demands.

“Why should she?” Cathy asks with surprise written all over her face. “You've had it coming. You should be glad that she's held off this long in doing it.”

“Then they'll be snow skiing in Hell before I apologize to that spoiled rotten brat of yours,” Amanda snarls.

Before anyone can react to her words, Amanda all but runs down the hallway and a moment later the sound of the back door slamming shut reaches them.

“Amanda!” Hank yells out in surprise and starts to go after her only to find that the twins won't let go of him. “Please let go of me, girls. I need to go check on your aunt.”

“Don't bother,” Stuart orders and it takes a great deal of self control for Hank not to snap at the man. “She's just having another one of her temper tantrums. She'll come back when she's ready.”

“You don't care that your daughter has just run off into a snow storm?” Hank asks in shock at the man's callous behavior.

“Actually, it stopped snowing about half an hour ago,” Cathy tells him with a shrug. “Stuart's right, she'll come back once she's cooled down.”

“I will give her one hour or until it starts snowing again and then I'm going after her,” Hank states as he gently, but firmly disengages the twins from his middle. “Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go and pack.”

Before any of the others have a chance to respond, Hank is up the stairs and headed for the room he's been sleeping in so that he can pack his bags, studiously ignoring the Beast raging inside of his head.

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His bags are packed and in the trunk of his car, waiting for him to take his leave of this place and he silently hopes that Amanda was sincere in her wish to go with him. He has never been happier to see a snow plow in his life, since it means there won't be any delay when it's time to leave. The fifteen minutes it took for him to dig his car out at least worked off some of his anger and frustration, but the fact that Amanda has yet to return has done nothing for his nerves.

Now he stares out the living room window, his heavy coat laying across the arm of the couch waiting for him and never has snow looked so bleak to him. It takes every bit of his self control not to be pacing in front of this plate glass window like a caged animal as he waits for her return or for the time to be up so that he can go find her. Fortunately, no one has bothered to try talking to him since he went upstairs to pack as he's not sure he would be able to keep a civil tongue in his head.

The tantalizing smells of their Christmas dinner reaches his nose, but his stomach is so tied up in knots with worry that it does little more than annoy him. He resists the urge to check his watch again to see how much time has passed since he knows he's just checked it not that long ago. When Mike joins him at the window, he simply ignores the other man's presence and continues to watch for his lady love's return.

“For what it's worth, I'm sorry about the kids getting into your stuff,” Mike finally says after several long minutes of silence. “I don't know why they did it. Amy's never hidden food outside of her room. The kids will buy you a new box, I promise.”

“At this moment, it's not the Twinkies being returned to me that I'm overly concerned about,” Hank replies in a rather displeased voice.

“Amy's always taking off when she's ticked off about something,” Mike tells him. “She'll be back once she's worked the anger off.”

“Has she ever gone off in weather as bad as this before?” Hank asks, staring at the clear footprints in the snow leading into the woods.

“Well, um, no, she usually heads for the barn when it's cold out,” Mike hesitantly admits.

“Then you'll have to excuse me if I don't share your confidence,” Hank responds, still not looking over at the man.

“She knows these woods like the back of her hand, she'll be fine,” Mike assures him and all he gets in response is a non-committal grunt from the other man.

A few minutes pass by before the silence is broken, but this time, it's by Hank himself.

“I am curious about something,” Hank says, slightly startling Mike.

“What's that?” Mike asks.

“Why did you pick Annie over Amanda?” Hank inquires. “No offense, but Annie strikes me as being a bit...difficult...to get along with.”

“Annie's really sweet, but she doesn't really like change, especially without any warning,” Mike replies. “She's a good wife and an excellent mother, but I'm afraid with you here, she's been really stressed out. No offense.”

“None taken,” Hank assures him. “However, you haven't answered my question.”

“Why would I need to pick between them?” Mike questions. “Amy has always been a friend to me. She's the first kid at the church to come over and talk to me when my family started going there. She's a very out going person, but I always found her to be a bit bossy, sort of like my mom and sister. Annie's a lot quieter and a lot easier for me to be comfortable around.”

Before Hank can reply, the timer on his watch goes off and he quickly turns it off just before he grabs his coat and heads for the back door.

“I'll come with you,” Mike offers as he grabs his own coat off of a hook next to the door before following Hank out onto the back porch.

“That won't be necessary,” Hank states as he quickly pulls his snow boots on and Mike puts his coat on.

“Listen, if I don't go with you, Stuart will and I wouldn't wish that man on my worst enemy,” Mike quietly tells him after making sure the door is firmly closed behind him.

“Then in that case, I certainly hope you can keep up,” Hank replies.

Before Mike can respond, Hank leaps off of the top step and bounds across the yard at an amazing speed. Mike's glad that his boots are already on and quickly takes off after the man, knowing there's no way in Hell he's going to be able to keep up with him.

Hank follows Amanda's footprints and worriedly notices that they're none too steady, like she was either drunk or having a hard time seeing where she was going. He goes deeper into the woods and before he knows it he's climbing up a hill where the trees and underbrush are much thicker. Soon he's running at the top of a ridge of steep drop off, nervously watching the unsteady weave of her steps.

What feels like an eternity later, he finally catches a whiff of her scent and he puts on a burst of speed, hoping that he's close. Soon her scent becomes stronger, but with it comes the metallic tinge of blood and pushes himself beyond what even he knew he was capable of. He sprints around a large maple that's precariously perched at the top of the ridge and then he comes to a skidding halt.

He stands and stares at the footprints she's left in the snow before they disappear over the edge of the drop off.

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A/N II: It's good to be the author. :evil snickering ensues: