Do I Know You? — We Will All Be Judged by the Courage of Our Hearts

[xp-erverse.livejournal.com]

The group comes up with a plan to get back home.


Leaving the FLQ's secret hiding place was simple. Avoiding the people in the church slightly less so, but Jean-Paul spun a lie to a woman wearing a habit about getting turned around while looking for the rest room. Once free of the well-meaning nun - and wearing a beanie and a peacoat snagged from one of the front closets, he tucked their hands into the coat pockets and mumbled, "Getting out of Saguenay would be best, yes? I know Montreal much better and Raymonde is there, he can get us to the mansion."

"How we getting to Montreal?" Quentin asked. They stepped out of the church and into the morning's very sparse foot traffic. Though they kept their head down, their gaze darted around, on the lookout for anyone who was on the lookout for them. "That's a five-hour drive at least."

"I think between us, we can acquire a vehicle." Wanda took firm control and forced them to slow down, to raise their head a little bit more. They needed to look like a tired, bored teen, not someone who was scared or looking for trouble to appear around the corner. "However, I sincerely hope one of you is a better driver than yours truly, unless you wish to drive for five hours on a motorcycle."

There was an incredible silence considering four of them inhabited the same body. Finally, a huff. "Are you guys serious?" Gabriel asked, more than a little annoyed. "Fine." He sighed again, cracking the body's knuckles. "I'll do it. I'm sure Quentin prefers to be a passenger," he couldn't help the small smirk after a humorless few hours. "And somehow I end up driving every time Jean-Paul and I are in a car."

"You did not complain before," Jean-Paul said with a snort. "And anyway, you have only to ask, I will be happy to drive, as you say." He paused, then frowned a little and finished, "The street signs are different here, oui? I can drive now truly, it would likely be easier." The signs weren't that different, though, and Jean-Paul's distaste for vehicles was so strong it likely bled through to the others in Daniella's mind. However, if he was going to be in a car, he preferred to be driving himself.

"If you're sure." Gabriel shrugged one shoulder. They stopped at a corner, and he held a hand up to block out the sun so he could survey the street. "You probably know the roads better anyway. But if it's manual, I'll take the wheel. Betting you don't know how to drive stick."

"Road trip of the damned," Quentin said. "So your talents extend to stealing and hot-wiring cars, too? Never would've guessed."

"Quentin, I would suggest not knocking the talents of other people until a later date. When that later date no longer involves saving you as well." Wanda's words would have been sharper had she been better rested but, shockingly enough, it turned out that sharing a body with several other minds did not equal a decent sleep. "We need to put more space between us and where we stayed before we can find a suitable car to take."

"Ta Gueule," Jean-Paul muttered, the thought very specifically directed at Quentin. Shut the fuck up. The sentiment bled through to the others a moment later, the Quebecois letting it drift through his thoughts upon remembering the others wouldn't all automatically understand his French. "Come, there is a shopping center here somewhere close, there will be cars there. And food, also."

"Wow," Gabriel rolled their eyes. "This is going to be a fun road trip." With the body under his control, he started walking in the direction that Jean-Paul's psyche was pointing them, but he suddenly stopped. "Shouldn't we be hot-wiring a car on a less populated street? I mean, I'm no expert, but busy shopping center parking lot?"

Gently, Wanda nudged them back into moving. Stopping suddenly looked unnatural or, at the very least, like crazy person behavior and they couldn't afford to be noticed. "Keep moving," she said firmly, "no matter what the other voices in this head are saying. Depending on the size of the parking lot, it is not a bad place to try. If my powers are working, I can force any cameras to malfunction."

"And probably the transcarbulator or whatever to die, too," Quentin added helpfully, but left control of the body to the others. His understanding of car mechanics ended with knowing that his own car required premium (not why it did just that it wouldn't work right otherwise).

Gabriel made a noise to suggest how little he thought of Quentin at this moment. "You know—" He stopped himself. Wanda and Jean-Paul had really been piling on Quentin, and even though he resented last night's mental incursion, adding to the strife didn't make sense at this juncture. "He has a point," Gabriel finally said to finish that thought. "Cars are mostly circuits these days. Better find a rusty old clunker."

Jean-Paul hummed. He was tired of bickering with the others. They needed food. They needed a car. They needed to get to Montreal. Until someone did something useful, he was sticking to directing them where they needed to be and speaking French the way it was meant to be spoken.

"Quentin, the girl. Has there been any activity on her end at all?" Wanda might actively dislike the telepath but she was as headblind as a human. And the concern for Daniella's mental well-being was clear in Wanda's words as she moved through through the city. The girl was shorter than the woman currently driving but the stride was all Wanda.

"Nothing," the telepath answered, choosing to ignore the group's obviously growing enmity of him. Nothing new there. "She's there, I think, I can still see the bond, but she's quiet. If, you know, she's still alive."

They never made it to the shopping complex. Wanda happened to glance into an alley as they passed and something beyond the trash bin caught her eye. She swung them into the alley like they'd been meaning to walk there the entire time and she smiled when the brown, rusted truck took shape in front of her. "We are in luck," she said quickly. "There are no cameras here and that appears to be old enough for our purposes."

"Yeah. So old it probably doesn't run." Gabriel raised Daniella's eyebrow. "Don't suppose we'd get lucky..." He jiggled the handles on the driver's door. "Nope." He strolled around to the passenger's side and did the same. Little happened. "Damn. Locked." He glanced around the alley. "Time to get creative."

"Over there." Quentin pointed at the trash bin that they passed. A couple of discarded coat hangers from a nearby laundromat or dry cleaners sat on top of the pile of garbage. "Can you use these to jimmy open the door?"

"Oh, uh..." Gabriel followed the gesture, strolling over to the coat hangers and picking them up. "Yeah," he said a little hesitantly," I've seen people do this." He started to untwist the loop near the crook of the hanger, adopting a more confident demeanor. "Sure."

He went back to the driver's side door, continuing to form the wire into a long, straight piece, leaving a crook at the end. Then he slid his finger around the stripping on the window, trying to find a gap. "Ah, okay," he murmured. With a brief thought of how hot he'd find this if he weren't in the body of a gaunt, half-bald teenage runaway, he stuck the wire almost flat against the window and pushed the hook down, trying to find the catch on the door.

Jean-Paul was muttering French obscenities as the others worked. If they'd needed to get into a building, he could have handled that. He could probably have handled hotwiring a more modern car, if they were really that desperate. As things stood, he just offered some sense of verisimilitude, should someone as out of place as they were, themselves, be watching. It would be highly unlikely, after all, that a person in their situation would be cursing in anything other than French.

If Wanda was Jennie, maybe she could have slapped a little luck on the car door and voila, it would have allowed Gabriel's attempts to meet with the desired result. And she almost didn't try to use what power she had as she had no desire to blow out the block in case it backfired. But the flickering lines told her it, probably, wouldn't be a complete disaster so she mentally reached out as the body worked the lock and pulled. Gentle.

There was a grinding noise and a strange sort of popping noise. They raised their eyebrow as the door popped open. "Well, that is one car door that will never be the same again," Wanda muttered.

"At this point, the owner should be happy to get the five bucks from insurance this piece of shit is worth," Quentin offered. "Or whatever they call money in this country. A loony. Lucky, though. Tank's full."

"Yeah." Gabriel tossed the bent hanger in the back of the truck. "Good. The fewer stops we have to make, the better." They slid into the car, and Gabriel immediately went for the glove compartment. "Let's see." He rifled through, pulling out the owner's manual, a few granola bars and a safety hammer branded with the name of an insurance company.

"Oh, come on." He flipped the thing over, wrapping his hand around the orange plastic. The head was double-sided, with two metal ends shaped into fine points. "A weapon, but..." He reached under the passenger's side seat, feeling around. "Oh, bingo." He slid a small black plastic toolkit out from underneath them. "Baller." He popped open the latches and grabbed a small flathead screwdriver from within it. Then he slid back over to the driver's side, climbing out of the cab so that he could peak under the steering column.

"Okay," he muttered. "Let's see what Papa Cohuelo was good for." He paused, closing his eyes to try and visualize all those afternoons spent in his parents' garage so he could recall exactly what he needed to do. But it was hard to access his visual memory. Everything was a jumble of thoughts and feelings, and after last night's trip into the psiscape, he found the psychic static incredibly overwhelming.

"Stop trying to take over for a bit," he said after a few seconds, rubbing the girl's temples. "I can hear everything you're thinking," he added, "and the lack of confidence isn't appreciated."

"I am very confident in your ability to hotwire this car," Jean-Paul said, making sure to keep himself as far away from whatever it was that Gabriel was doing as he could because he didn't know anything about older cars. He shoved some of his confidence at the other man, though.

It took a surprisingly short amount of time, all things considered. Or, at least, short compared to what Jean-Paul was prepared to wait, anyway. "Merci," he said, waiting until Gabriel had finished stuffing wires and things back into the places where they belonged. "I am not going to be electrocuted, oui?" Even as he asked, he slid them into the driver's seat, the car vibrating gently around them.

"Do not jinx us," Wanda sighed, relaxing into the seat. She had no problem releasing control in this situation and wondered if one could sleep while trapped in someone else's body.

If Quentin had a head then it would have ached as a result of the constant nattering, compounded by the numbing fear that they would be caught and brought back to the torture chamber at any minute. But for once, things seemed to be going according to plan, so he kept his thoughts to himself as they climbed into the truck and started it up. Maybe this would work. Maybe for once the world wasn't working against him.

Try as he might, he couldn't hold back the derisive laugh that accompanied that thought.

~*~

The road to Montreal is not a gentle one.



The group had made it to Quebec City in record time (in one piece, even) so it would only be another two-and-a-half hours or so to Montreal. Quentin could not tell whether the anxiety he felt was his own or bleeding over from one of his compatriots (or, equally likely, a mishmash of all of them). All he knew for sure was that they as a group could not wait to get to Montreal and find Jean-Paul's father/whatever to help fix this.

They noticed their appropriated vehicle was running out of gas about half an hour down Autoroute 20 so they pulled over to the nearest gas station. Their meager cash supply was running out, but they had enough to fill up the tank halfway and load them up with enough empty calories to sate them for the rest of the trip. A Twix bar dangled out of their mouth as they replaced the pump, and it fell to the ground when they turned around and bumped into someone standing right behind them.

Whatever Quentin was going to say died on their lips when they recognized the stranger's black pants, blue shirt, Kevlar vest, and gold badge. "Well, fuck."

It wouldn't do to appear any crazier in front of an officer of the law, so Gabriel kept from hushing Quentin (or themselves, whatever the case was). Instead, he crouched down, picking up the Twix bar, since it wouldn't help much to litter in front of what appeared to be a cop. "Oh my gosh, officer," he stammered, figuring a teenage girl would be more spastic and afraid of the law than disdainful and distrustful. "I'm so sorry! Didn't see you there - hope I didn't get any chocolate on you." It occurred to him, as he stood, that they were in Quebec, and he wasn't speaking French. "Sorry!" Another apology didn't hurt. It was the Canadian way.

The cop pressed a button on the small radio attached to his vest. He said something in French and received a garbled reply in the same language before turning back to Daniella. "Mademoiselle, if you'll please come with me," he said in slightly accented English, and reached for her arm before they had the opportunity to reply.

"What? Why?" Wanda said, stumbling them back. It looked like a stumble but it was a calculated move to put as much space as she could between them and the police officer. While the truck had probably already been reported stolen, it was unlikely that the information would have been disseminated by now. And Wanda had made sure they'd been doing nothing on the road to catch someone's attention.

So, either the truck had been stolen before they had taken it - irony at its finest - it was probably more along the lines of a missing person report...

"Maximoff, this is the part where you do the ninja thing again," Quentin muttered under their breath, ignoring Gabriel's decision to not carry on a conversation in front of strangers.

The policeman followed them, closing the distance and reaching out for her again. "You need to come with me," he ordered. "Your parents are looking for you, Mademoiselle Gauthier."

Wanda sighed. Violence wasn't something she shied away from but this man was only doing his job and, as far as he was aware, she was a missing, potentially sick young woman. "My - my parents?" she asked, freezing as the man gently but firmly cupped her elbow. She let him get in a step closer, noting he wasn't going to put her in cuffs, before she moved in.

It wasn't hard to break the hold and she used his surprise to her advantage. The officer was well trained but Wanda, even in this body, had a different set of skills.

Grabbing his wrist, she yanked him towards her. He was off balance, though recovering quickly, so she moved faster. A kick to his instep, a blow to his sternum and then she hooked his legs to throw him to the ground. And last, a blow to the head and he was out.

And she felt terrible about it but not terrible enough to send out a careful blast of her power. The music the gas station was playing died, the officer's radio made a strange noise and, hopefully, any videos.

Quentin didn't need to speak to notify the other passengers that his only thought now was getting the hell out of there. He didn't take control of Daniella's body so much as urge the others to remove the hose from the tank, jump back in, and peel away.

They had no time to relax even when it finally did occur to someone that driving like a maniac was another entry on the list of poor decisions made in the last 24 hours. The blaring of an approaching siren accompanied by dazzling red and blue lights of the cop car following them - a hidden partner of the man they'd incapacitated, possibly? - threw him into another fit of panic. Fear of what would happen if they were caught bubbled up through the dormant link between Quentin and his companions with their host. Quentin fought back against the memories of Daniella strapped to the hospital bed, her body pumped with enough sedatives to fell a horse, crying out in final desperation for help before a sensationless blackness enveloped her. He shouldered that burden, filtering the abject terror away from his companions so they could focus on survival. With no combat or escapist skills to speak of, this was the least he could do.

Had Gabriel known, he would have been grateful. As it was, he was concentrating on driving, pushing the speed of the old truck closer to his limits. He was suddenly grateful for the nights he'd spent as Wade's chauffeur. Inevitably, he'd find himself forced to make sudden turns and swerves to lose a mark that may or may not exist, and the directions came with little warning. At the time, it was hard to know whether the mercenary was fucking with him, but every time he drove, he had to be attuned to the road around him jus tin case a sudden U-turn was coming out of nowhere.

Now, Gabriel was reaping the benefits. He sensed the car in front of them about to change lanes to avoid the their trailing police car, and he recalibrated their course, pressing down on the pedal and swerving into another lane.

A stream of profoundly profane French burst from Daniella's mouth finally as Jean-Paul managed to push his way out of the tiny little corner of her mind that the others had relegated him to. "Mon Dieu, la Gendarmerie royale du Canada - you just assaulted him! And now - " Unable to verbalize his outrage at this entire turn of events, Jean-Paul did the only thing he could. He made sure Gabriel knew where they were going and the kept his mental hands to himself.

"I know," Wanda responded as evenly as she could. "What else would you have had me do? Convince him not to take us back?" She made a noise of frustration. "What this group was prepared to do to Daniella is barbaric and has to break at least a dozen large laws in your country! Which means that they fly under the radar and have the reach to do so. That means money and influence. The police are being told that this girl is a runaway and they probably have some very realistic papers that show that she is not in her right state of mind. Plus the stolen vehicle was certainly not going to be in her favor!"

She took a deep breath, trying to calm them. "I did not enjoy that or want it. I disabled him as gently as I was able and he will wake up with a wounded pride, bruised ribs and a sore head. But he will wake up."

And she was going to have a talk with Garrison about it when they got back to their own bodies. Wanda knew it would bother her until she found a way to make reparations in some fashion.

"Who cares, he's only a cop, there's ten thousand more of them out there ready to return an abused mutant girl to her family that wants to kill her," Quentin offered as the memories receded and the link grew quiet again. "Good news is, I'm pretty sure Daniella's still in here somewhere. Felt her for a second there. Either that or we're legit going insane."

"Can you all shut up and help me figure out how the fuck we're going to outrun a cop in this piece of junk?" Gabriel took a peek in the rearview mirror. The lights and sirens weren't fading Into the distance. "Insane or not, would like to be alive."

"Take this left," Jean-Paul said. "That right. Another right. That alley. Park. Turn the car off completely." Once done, he grabbed their bag of food and got out, turning to run through the alley and out the other side. The police would find the car easily, but hopefully looking for it would stall them long enough for him to get lost in the crowds. "We will need another car," he said. "And a coat." Their basic description would, he didn't doubt, be sent out immediately once the RCMP officer was conscious again.

It didn't take him long to find a certain pattern of scratches on the corner of a building. There was no guarantee that they would find what they needed there, but they would at least be able to hide for a short while. So Jean-Paul followed the markings, specifically the ones that indicated fewer police patrolled an area. "They are for the... the homeless, oui?" He said, answering the question he could feel the others not asking. "And the gangs sometimes."

The look on Daniella's face was a scary imitation of Wanda's pursed lips and raised eyebrows. "Not that I have any issues using what resources are available to us," she said, "but would you care to fill us in on the rest of your plan?"

"Change clothes, steal another car," Jean-Paul said. "Continue to Montreal. Do not assault more government people." He paused to look through their bag of flood. "Hm... it might be enough." It didn't take them long to get to a bridge and the small community of homeless people living there. Most of them seemed genuinely disinterested in the young girl with her dirty clothing. The few who showed too much interest, Jean-Paul steered them well clear of.

A half hour later, they had no food in their bag but they did have a different coat and a hat. Leaving as quickly as they had arrived, Jean-Paul said, "Someone else steal another car and do not do anything stupid." He retreated to the corner of Daniella's mind that he had taken to lurking in.

Wanda resisted the urge to roll her eyes but it was a Herculean task. "Well, we all heard his majesty. Let us quickly locate another car and make with our second grand theft auto of the day."