Logan knocked on the office door. Terri looked up from her work and met his eyes with hers. "Can I come in?" he asked. "I'd like to talk to you." She looked to consider the request, and for a moment he thought she was going to refuse. But then she nodded and indicated a chair, and he walked in closing the door behind him. He waited while she stacked the papers and put them into a file cabinet, removing any sensitive documents from possible sight. He sat down.

Down the hall, Scott knocked on the door to Mr. Reynolds office. "I want some answers from you, Reynolds!" he stated as soon as he walked in, after receiving a gruff "Enter" Reynolds looked up with a bland, dry look and heaved an eloquently impatient sigh as Scott closed the door silently and strode up to his desk.

"What's on your mind, Logan?" Terri asked. She was not surprised to see him here, after last night. And she had a pretty good idea what it was he wanted. But she also knew he was probably going to be disappointed in what she had to tell him. For some reason, she wished she could tell him what he was going to want to know. But another part of her was perversely glad that she couldn't.

"You won't get any that way, Mr. Summers." Reynolds replied and went back to the work on his desk, a re-negotiation with Anderson International considering last night's fiasco, for which he had this whelp and his little friends to thank. He knew perhaps he was judging them harshly, but at the moment he didn't care. If it had not been for this little punk, and his playmates, there would be no need for all the paperwork he now had to do, the job would be done, and they would have been paid. Now he had to go through all the paperwork, reschedule the job, and they were not going to get paid as much. Regardless, he was trying to keep a rein on his temper.

Logan looked at Terri, who gazed coolly back at him, and he could scent her cool professional attitude. She was not looking at him as a friend. He was as good as a stranger to her, and she was going to insist on playing this out like he was not someone she knew. "What was all that, last night?" he asked, trying to put the curiosity and concern for her and her well-being into his tone.

"What the hell did you think you doing last night?" Scott almost shouted at Reynolds. He knew this might not be the best way to go about this, but he was still angry about that fiasco last night, and he had Gambit back home with four broken ribs, and the agile X-Man was going to be out of action for the next four weeks at least. And as a result, Rogue was taking out her frustration on anyone who got in her way.

Terri met his eyes. She felt her resolve to not care what he thought about her and her job start to crumble as she looked into his dark eyes. For a moment, she was a little girl again, hearing him ask her how she had scraped her elbow, and knowing that he had a Band-Aid to make it all better. For a moment, she wished it was still that easy. She averted her eyes, looking at the bridge of his nose, which still looked like he had had it broken one too many times, and then some. "THAT was doing my job. What we were hired to do." She answered him.

"That is classified information, Mr. Summers." Tom replied, keeping his tone neutral. He smiled as he scented the arrogant little man's rising frustration. "Good." He thought. "Now his day can be as lousy as he made mine. Turn about is fair play, and all." He smiled coolly at Scott, his dark eyes glittering dangerously.

"And that little girl, Terri." Logan pressed, not understanding her. He couldn't believe what he was hearing from her. "What was that?"

"Classified?!?!" growled Scott. "Breaking the law is not classified." He leaned on the desk, his fists on top of Reynolds desk and glared down at the man. Reynolds looked at Scott's fists, on his desk and then met his eyes and Scott felt it again. The man was everywhere, Scott could sense him, physically and emotionally. There was rage in that glare, and a deadly intensity, and Scott, for that brief moment, had no doubt that this man could and would kill him, that there was no where to hide from this man, and wondered briefly if maybe he was not already dead and just hadn't realized it yet. Reynolds broke the gaze and Scott removed his fists from the desk and backed up a foot. {Jean?!?!} he thought, and felt her calming comfort in his mind, and listened as Jean told him that there was a lot of old rage and pain in this man, as well as a too-well-trained killer instinct. {Tread softly, Scott.} she counciled. {That was but a threat. If you provoke him too much, I don't believe he will really have any control over his reactions. He WILL try to kill you.} Scott assured Jean that he would calm down and try to go more gently.

"The same thing." Terri told Logan, as she leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms in front of her. It was a defensive posture and she knew it, but she was feeling a little defensive right at the moment. "I was doing what I was getting paid to do." She wished he didn't make her feel so young.

Tom stopped glaring at Mr. Summers and leaned back in his chair, hands steepled in front of him. He avoided looking directly into the man's eyes, feeling he had made his point well. "If you can prove that what we are doing is illegal, feel free to take your evidence to the authorities." He said coldly.

Logan met Terri's eyes, seeing the defensive posture, and smelling a trace sent of resentment. He felt his gut clench again. She resented him. And what he was going to ask, probably wouldn't help. "You got paid to take the girl? Where did you take her?" he asked, and watched her for reactions. Her scent didn't change much, she was still resentful, and a little angry at him. She definitely didn't like this line of questioning.

"Anderson hired you to get to Walker." Scott said. "We know they did. And threatening Walker is illegal." Scott hedged, as they didn't have any hard evidence on Hades. "If that got out to the public, you'd be exposed. And no respectable company would hire you, and the government would investigate so quick it would make your head spin."

"I can't give out that information, Logan." Terri answered. "Our client wanted this done as quietly as possible, and doesn't want people to know who he is, or where she went." She looked at him and met his eyes. She was telling him the truth. That whole operation had been classified, and they had accepted it because the man who had asked them to get it done was someone Tom knew, and owed a favor. "I'm sorry if this doesn't meet with your approval, Logan. I am sorry if you don't approve, of either me or our methods here. But if it's me you disapprove of, you can just get in line with my parents and all those kids I went to school with. And if it's Hades that you disagree with, and you don't approve of the company's policies, then I am sorry, but you have no say in the matter. Not unless you wish to become a member of the time, in which case you would need to speak with either Mr. Reynolds or Mr. Turner, as they are the ones in charge of recruitment."

"I am not at liberty to discuss any arrangements with our clients, Mr. Summers." Tom said as reasonably as possible. Truthfully, the little threat Summers had made was irritating. He ran a legitimate business here, and having this little whelp try to tell him that he was running it wrong, and furthermore, trying to tell him how to run it, and trying to blackmail him with the press, was both amusing and pathetic. "If there is something else you wished to discuss, something that does not involve the business decisions and agreements of Hades and it's clients, then by all means, sit. Otherwise, I shall have to ask you to leave." He waited patiently, watching the little man.

Logan sighed at her response, irritated by the cold, professional attitude she was using on him. He would rather she get truly angry with him, and start yelling, something that would tell him if he was getting through to her. He gritted his teeth and steeled himself. "So you have decided to add kidnapping to your list of skills, is that it, Terri?" he asked, knowing it was a low blow, and not liking himself for saying it, but needing to get her to lose her calm professionalism and talk to him.

"Doesn't it bother you at all that you are dragging all mutants down with your actions?" Scott asked, hoping to see some spark of understanding and human emotion in those hard eyes.

Terri met his eyes and felt her insides freeze in cold anger. "Is that what you think? Is it?!?! Do you have such a low opinion of me, Logan, that you think I would go in for kidnapping a little kid?!?!" Terri didn't bother to wait for an answer. She stood up and walked to the door and opened it up. "Get out." She said coldly and quietly, her voice hard as nails, as she felt something inside of her soul start to bleed. "Since you obviously don't approve of me, or anything that I do, and have such a low opinion of me and all, I know you won't want to stay, just as I know I don't want you here. Not anymore. So just get out."

"I am not at liberty to discuss the motives behind our actions with you either, Mr. Summers." Tom stood up and walked around the desk and began to advance on Summers, forcing him to the door. He reached behind the man and opened it. "Have a . . . pleasant . . . day, Mr. Summers." He reached out and placed a single finger on the little man's chest and slowly, almost with infinite care, pushed him out the door. "This discussion is over." He closed the door on Scott Summers with a grim sense of satisfaction, as well as an amount of pride that he hadn't killed the man.

Logan stood and walked out the door, where he paused and turned to face her, not wanting to leave things like this. He didn't want to leave her on such a sour note. He wanted to tell her he didn't have a low opinion of her, he just wanted to understand what was going on in that beautiful head, but then she looked at him and said quietly "And Logan," her dulcet tones burned into his mind, just as every syllable etched itself into his memory, along with every scent and nuance. "remember when I said we would have to get together for a drink again sometime?" He nodded, feeling a creeping of dread. Her eyes were cold when she squared off, like she was ready to fight, one hand holding the door handle. "Forget it." She said. "Because it will be a cold day in hell before I agree to see you again."

She closed the door in his face. He could do nothing but walk away, while trying to forget that he had just caused Terri, the little girl he had promised to keep from harm to the point of sacrificing his own life is necessary, more pain than anyone he had ever fought against ever could have.

Scott walked back into the mansion frustrated and angry. Predictably, Jean was waiting for him with a glass of lemonade and a sympathetic ear. He told her about the confrontation with Reynolds, and his lack of success in getting through to the man. "I swear the man just doesn't care."

Jean was quiet for a moment as she considered what she had sensed from the man, when he had been, for a brief moment, the only thing in Scott's mind. There had been a type of connection, and it had been easy for her to follow the line to Mr. Reynolds mind. Normally, she would never even have considered entering the man's mind without his consent, but he had been close to killing Scott, and to her mind, that had been reason enough.

There had been a lot of interference, and the thoughts themselves were blocked from her in a way she was completely unfamiliar with. But she could sense the anger, and the pain, and see the intensity of those emotions. But she had seen something else as well. There was, in the man's mind, evidence that his mind had been tampered with, programmed over many years. The man was, literally, a trained killer, and had spent many years doing nothing but killing what he was told to kill. She could imagine that the US Army had been thrilled to have such an efficient killing machine, one which would not renege or hesitate or suffer a crisis of conscience, at their disposal. But there was also evidence that someone, a skilled telepath or perhaps an empath, had been attempting to help, attempting to break down that programming. There were signs that Reynolds was getting away from what he had been trained to be. There was a chance, point of fact, a likelihood, that he would be able to break free of the programming completely, and that he was making the effort to do so.

Which is why she had asked that Scott take it easy and not be so aggressive. She knew Scott was angry, and unhappy about what had happened when the two teams had clashed. She knew he felt justified. But from what she had found out about Tom Reynolds, she honestly believed that to push him too far would make the programming take over his actions, and he would do everything in his abilities to kill Scott.

Slowly Jean shook her head. "He does care, Scott." She said. "I know it didn't appear that he did, but there is a lot of anger and pain in the man. Someone who doesn't care, doesn't get angry, and he doesn't feel pain. He was getting angry at you when you accused him of breaking the law. Perhaps he found it insulting, perhaps not. But I honestly believe the man has been programmed to feel nothing but anger and hate, and, until recently, that was all he felt. This doesn't mean he can't feel compassion, or love. But if you have no idea what those things feel like, you feel nothing until you can recognize it. So right now, he feels almost nothing, unless it is anger or hatred or dislike. Which makes it look like he doesn't care." She stopped, uncertain if she was making herself clear. She thought for a moment, and then had an inspiration.

"Scott," she said. "remember when you said you had your tonsils out?"

Scott nodded. He did remember, and he remembered listing to the doctor tell him that his tonsils had been two of the most infected tonsils he had seen in a long time. He smiled and shared the memory with Jean. She nodded and smiled.

"And remember how you told him that you didn't understand how they could be, because your throat wasn't sore before the operation, and how he had said it was probably because you had become used to the pain. That your body had adjusted to the pain level so now you felt all right, even though they were infected." She prompted Scott with the memory of the doctor's explanation.

"Yes, Jean." Scott said, still confused. "I remember. But what does this have to do with Reynolds?"

"Scott, don't you see?" Jean said, disappointed that she had not been able to make herself clear. "Tom Reynolds has been conditioned to accept pain. Look at all those scars, and think about how they would have felt to someone else. Think about how Logan can accept wound after wound and keep working through it. It is the same thing."

Scott met her eyes and slowly understanding came to him. "So what you're saying is that Reynolds was conditioned to hate, resent, dislike, all the negative emotions. So when someone shows him compassion, he doesn't recognize it as such, he just knows it's not resentment. And he doesn't like people, he just doesn't dislike them. Instead of loving someone, he doesn't hate them. Something like that?" Scott looked at Jean and she nodded. Scott sighed, immediately sorry for the way he pushed Tom Reynolds, and the way he had baited him. He wasn't quite ready to forgive the man for the way he had glared at him, but at least now he had a better understanding of him. "Good God in Heaven, Jean." He sighed, and shared his confusion of the situation with her. "What kind of person does that to a man? What does that kind of conditioning do to someone? And how does a man survive that? Can they ever recover?"

Jean sighed and snuggled into Scott's arms. "I don't know what it takes to do that to someone." She said. "Thank God that I don't. I don't ever want to know. As for what does it do to someone, just look at Reynolds, and I think you'll get your answer. He was a killer. But he did survive. Perhaps because he was programmed to, perhaps he just has a will that is so strong he refused to give up. We may never know how he survived it, but he obviously has. And as for recovery," she paused and considered again. "There is evidence that someone has been helping him to recover, helping him to learn to recognize other emotions, and subverting the programming." She smiled at Scott. "Maybe someday he will recover completely. In many ways, he's an emotional child. He has a lot of growing to do yet. But he is trying. And trying hard, I would imagine. And maybe we'll still be around to find out what kind of man he'll become."