The water bottle was graciously accepted. He didn't even care that she'd drank out of it -- after all, they'd swapped saliva before. It was cool and smooth, relieving the cracks in his throat. He took his time as he drank it and maintained eye contact with Mattie as she stood across the counter with her arms crossed. "Right," he said, re-capping the bottle and setting it on the counter. "Although it is part of the reason why I came here, I didn't come here just to see you again. I came here because...well, because you could be in danger. And, we all could." He paused and tried to force the anxiety out of his system. It was bubbling it his throat, giving him trouble as he spoke. With awkward, shaky movements, he sat at the counter and tried to relax.

It came to his attention that Mattie might not have even known there were others like them who'd escaped. He went over all the information that he was keeping cramped inside of his mind, trying to decipher what Mattie knew compared to what he knew, what she needed to know and what she didn't, and what he wanted to her know. Three years worth of info, yet now suddenly he was drawing a blank.

"Okay. Let me explain. There are other mutants. I don't know what labs they came from. But, uh...they're out there. Some of them are nice. Some of them, uh, well, not so nice." He winced, remembering some of the rather embarrassing encounters he'd had. "Anyway...they're super, super...super weird. Some of them, at least. Like, they're not...all there. Like they're being controlled. Well, we did some testing, and some interrogation, and we traced their behavior back to this...this drug. It's being distributed between mutants like crazy, but it almost instantly kills normal humans. We set up a plan with another mutant, a woman, to find out where the drug came from, and where people were getting it."

He paused, putting the rest of the pieces together in his mind. "Mattie...these mutants have been around for...for decades. Maybe even centuries." He looked at her and slightly shook his head. "We weren't the first ones and I can guarantee we aren't going to be the last. There have been programs like this around for...forever. But...but that's not the point. The point is that this drug is new. Relatively new, at least, but...there are massive, massive underground tunnels. Like subways, but not open to the public. You wanna know the only way you can get to them? You have to morph through the ground, Mattie. If you don't have that ability, you have to find someone that can morph you down there and get you back up. It's...it's crazy. But, that's where they get the drugs, this drug, and the woman we worked with believes that it's a drug that puts the ones who take it under a type of mind control. Just what the scientists who screwed us up this way wants. And the ones who are taking it..." He swallowed hard. "They're rounding up the Rebels. That's...that's us. The ones who escaped. And they're taking them back. And they're super, super, super aggressive."

Figuring that this would be enough information for Mattie to take in for now, Nicholas took a huge breath and concluded with, "As for Jacob...he's...well, he's here. He's here with me."