"All it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy." – Alan Moore

Tom lunges forward, knocking Bourne against the wall and pinning him there. Bourne doesn't even struggle, just looks smug to see Tom.

Hold on… he can see him? Tom notices his own arm in front of him, pushing against Bourne's chest, but like he normally does. Not shimmery like when he's invisible.

He tries to go back to being transparent, but nothing happens. Bourne seems to notice his frustration as Tom grits his teeth with the effort, but when the man laughs Tom snaps his attention back and slams him hard against the wall again, wiping the smirk off his face.

"Why are you here?" he challenges, narrowing his eyes at Bourne, choosing to ignore the absence of his power for now.

"I told you. I want to stop Matthew Willis."

"Why would you help us?" Tom asks, not giving Bourne an inch to move in, though his muscles are already beginning to complain from the tension of pushing his so hard against the stone tunnell.

"You forget. He abandoned me. Him and Simpson left me for dead, and then to add insult to injury, he started trying to take over the world for the good of people with abilities, and yet I didn't see him hurrying back to find me, even though he knew exactly where I was. I woulden't have wanted to follow his plans, but he didn't even try to come back to release me."

Bourne speaks with genuine fury in his voice, making Tom believe that he really would work to help their cause. He steps back, but the second he's no longer in contact with Bourne he flashes to invisibility again. Huh, he hadnt even realised he was still exerting his power. But it was when he touched Bourne that…

He reaches our again, brushing Bourne's shoulder with his fingertips, and instantly becomes visible again. He drops his hand, but this time keeps himself visible, if only to glare at Bourne, who raises an eyebrow at him.

"Worked out what I can do yet, Thomas?" Bourne asks, holding his hands out slightly with a grin.

"You stopped my power," Tom mutters, looking down to check, despite himself, that Bourne hasn't got any of those white cuffs that supress power.

"Yup."

"Is that it? You take away other people's powers?"

Bourne shakes his head, glancing in the direction Willis went only a minute or so before.

"That makes it sound like I take them for myself, and that's for Willis to do, not me. I just stop powers having any effect through physical contact. It's not very flashy, so almost no-one knows about it. Impossible to detect unless you've got a power yourself, see?" Bourne says, shrugging.

At that moment, they hear a pounding tread coming down the tunnell, and seconds later Danny comes into view closely followed by Harry.

"Tom!" Danny pants, and then looks round at the same time as Harry to see Bourne, watching them expectantly. Danny does a double take, staring wide-eyed at him, and Harry instantly holds up a hand at him like Tom's seen him do just before he strikes something.

"Move a muscle and I'll kill you," Harry says through gritted teeth, not even blinking as he watches Bourne, who seems slightly amused by his reaction. Before Tom can explain, he speaks to Harry himself.

"Please try. Attack me. But just aim at me, not the walls; we wouldn't want to make too much noise in case Willis hears. Go on," Bourne says, taking a step towards Harry, eyes gleaming. "I'm curious."

Harry's expression flickers, before he seems to make up his mind and then it almost looks like a ripple comes down his arm from his shoulder, along his fingertips, and then sweeping through the air, the force actually distorting Tom's vision slightly.

But nothing happens. Bourne looks down at himself, then shrugs, looking half interested, half dissapointed. And that's when Tom realises that he really meant it. He didn't care that he could have died if Harry's power worked. He just wanted to see if Harry could affect him. Bourne really means that he wants to come after Willis, and Tom finally understands that it's because he has nothing he cares about anymore. He's alone in a position of power, abandoned by possibly the closest thing he ever had to friends. And he doesn't care if he dies to get revenge on those who betrayed him.

"How did you do that?" Harry asks, still holding his hand out towards Bourne. He can always cave in the ceiling if he actually wants to do damage to him. Even if powers don't work on him directly, the foce will still break enough rock off the ceiling to stop him.

"My power is resistance. Other powers don't work on me, and when I'm touching someone their powers can't work for them either," Bourne shrugs. "I'm assuming you were surprised to find me here because you couldent sense me?" he asks Danny, who nods tightly, frowning.

"What are you doing here?" Harry challenges, glaring at Bourne. Tom knows he never likes losing control, and having his power not work, in any circumstances, will definitly make Harry twitchy.

"Same thing you are. I want to stop Matt Willis. I was explaining it to Tom before you two showed up, right after the small one got grabbed and dragged off…"

"Where is he?" Tom interrupts, remembering Dougie all of a sudden and turning to Danny. They don't know what Willis will be capable of with one of them alone, especially when they don't have Dougie to communicate with.

"I don't know," Danny says, supressed panic on his features. "Willis is way off, further into the mountain and even deeper underground, but I can't see Dougie!"

"Oh don't panic," Bourne says in a bored tone of voice. "Willis won't kill him until he's mastered his power, and telepathy as strong as his takes a while to get a good hold of, I'd imagine."

"But why can't Danny feel him anywhere then?" Harry growls at Bourne, who returns his gaze without flinching.

"Haven't you noticed you can't hear him yet? No nice voices in your mind?"

"That isnt helping! Just tell us –"

"The cuffs," Tom mutters, interrupting Harry. He looks up at Bourne, who nods, and he knows he's right. "The cuffs we had to wear in the institute back in London, that stopped our powers. Willis had one and he put it on Dougie…"

"Which is why he can't communicate with you, and blocks him out from Danny too. Incidentally, it's also how Willis got right up next to you without you knowing. But he only has one I'd imagine, so that's why now you know where Willis is, because he's put his only cuff on Dougie," James said, hands in pockets.

"How do those cuffs work? If they're just made out of a special element, how can they do all that without any normal scientists knowing?" Danny asks.

"Oh they're not made out of any element," Bourne says breezily.

"But in your office you said –"

"I know what I said, Harry. I lied. Didn't wanna tell you all my secrets on day one, now, did I?" Bourne says, grinning cheekily. "They're actually just ceramic material, but with my power mixed in so that they are effectivly portable mes, in a way…"

"How do they mix your power into ceramic?" Tom asked, puzzled by the technology.

"It's not pleasant," Bourne replies, face twisting slightly. "They mix the ceramic mixture with some of my bone marrow."

Tom looks at the others reactions, just to check that he heard right. He guesses from they expressions of mixed shock, horror and disgust that they all heard the same thing.

"My power is something to do with specific blood cells within the tissue. It just worked. There's not much of the stuff around though, because I want to keep most of my skeleton intact, for some reason that fails to escape the understanding of the ministry," James says sarcastically.

"Dougie," Harry says, like he's just remembered again, making the other two jump slightly. "We need to find him."

"He'll be with Willis," James says knowledgeably. "He'll be trying to find out what Dougie's power is. Trying to get it from him if he suspects it's valuable. Either he'll find a way to get it quickly, or he'll lock him up and come out to see if anyone else is with him. It depends largely on how well you think Dougie holds up under interrogation."

"He's good at holding his toungue, and he's cleverer than he looks," Tom says anxiously, looking round at the others.

"He's quite small, though," Danny frowns.

"And he's not good with conflict and violence," Harry adds.

"Sounds like we need to work out how to get him back and get this over with as soon as possible then," Bourne nods.

"Well then. Lets go see what we can find," Tom says, looking at Danny, who nods tightly.

A/N: And now you know what James can do!

I found it really fun thinking of unusual stuff for the busted boys to be able to do! Charlie's is a bit more explicable in physical terms, but I like to think of Matt and James in terms of opposites, with Matt all tall and dark and obvious with what he wants, and James small and dangerous and scheming. So Matt's power adopts other people's power to extend them to himself, and then James's is such that he pushes all power away even in other people!

Incidentally, James's power is why he's allowed to work for the Ministry, especially so high up. He's not like everyone else, so he's a part of the society they deal with, but doesn't threaten normal people because to them he's also normal, because they have no powers for him to repress, if that makes sense...

I hope you like the way things are shaping out so far :) McFly teaming up with James despite their history. I think Harry hates him most, but even though he's going to be quite cold towards James he understands that they have to work together. Tom resolves to suspend judgement on Bourne until the whole hing is over. Quite frankly with his whole world as messed up as it is right now he needs to just trust him for a few hours and then he can deal with it. Danny accepts it on the basis of needing to help Dougie. What he doesn't tell the others (so it has to be a secret between us, kay?) is that because he always knows the true emotions behind people's appearance, he knows the tiny quirks of body language that give stuff away, even when they're imperceptible to others. So Danny can tell by the way James acts, with how he blinks just a little more than usual, and digs the nail of his forefinger into the skin of his thumb, that he's also scared. He's going to get revenge no matter what though, and fear has never factored into his plans so it doesn't matter. It actually gives him a thrill to think that it could all be over, even if everything finishing means that it is the end for him too. But Danny never tells any of the others, even at the end, but he always has a respect for the crazy dedication to his cause and beliefs that James has, even if he's a bit wary of the way the erratic way his mind sometimes works.

Do I think about the extra little things too much? Probably. Fun though.

I hope all of your Septembers are going well!