Disclaimer: I don't own Dark Angel or any characters featured in either of the seasons.

Summary: Manticore was never a secret military base, and there is no such thing as Transgenic super soldiers. Instead Manticore was an orphanage that had questionable ways of taking care of children. Max is a high school student, trying to escape her past, when someone unexpected shows up and turns everything inside out.

Past Orphan

Orphan Manticore Orphanage Shut Down, less than six months ago that headline was everywhere. Yet, Max still sometimes was afraid everything would revert back to when Manticore Orphanage still was running. Letting out a deep sigh, she refolded the worn newspaper and re-placed it inside the old shoebox where she kept anything Manticore related stored. When replacing the paper, she picked up an old photograph.

Leaning back against her headboard, Max stared at the people in the picture. They were of her siblings, or her housing mates at the orphanage. It had seemed they had always been there, together, surviving the hellhole they called 'home.'

"Boo?" Looking up, Max saw her roommate and best friend Cindy looking at her worried. "Ya ok?"

"Yeah," she responded quietly, looking at the picture again. Walking over to the bed, Cindy crawled up close to Max and hugged the girl.

"You can't keep doin' this, ya know that." Max didn't respond. "Boo, don't be like him. Don't let them win." Cindy was right, but it was still hard not to think bout what happened and everything before that. "Ben wouldn't want you to be this way." With that Cindy got up from the bed, left Max alone. Once again, Cindy was right.

"Ben," Max whispered thinking back on her brother. They had been close at Manticore, closer to each other than with the rest of their siblings. They always seemed to be in their own world, escaping from the harsh reality they lived in.

When Max had been 10 years old, her and her siblings ran away from the orphanage. Shortly afterwards, they were separated and had no way of finding one another. Ben had been the first of her siblings she had seen.

FLASH BACK

"Welcome to Jam Pony, what can I do for you sir?" Normal asked the stranger. Looking at the bespectacled man, Ben raised an eyebrow. 'Strange.'

"Yeah, I'm looking for someone, I was told she worked here. Max?" Ben asked hopefully, Normal didn't look pleased.

"Whatever she did this time, I am not responsible for her and her actions. You can find missy-miss over there with the other miscreants." Pointing over his should, Normal walked away shaking his head and mumbling something about 'juvenile delinquents, and waste of time.'

Walking over to a group of teenagers, Ben immediately knew which one was his sister, "Maxie?" Max snapped her head up in shock. She hadn't heard that nickname since Manticore, and only one person called her that.

"Ben?" It had to be. No one had those piercing hazel eyes and that shy like smile. Jumping from the ground, Max pounced her brother with a scream of excitement.

From that day on, the two were always together, and things were great. At least to Max they were, 5 months after finding each other, Max had learned the harsh truth. Ben was sick and suffering from a drug addiction, an addiction that he couldn't or wouldn't kick. For a month Max fought to save him, but like many had said: if he didn't want to be saved, she couldn't save him. Six months after finding one another, Max found Ben in alleyway behind their apartment, slumped against the wall and unresponsive. By time she got him to hospital, he was dead. "Self inflicted lethal dosage of multiple drugs injected into his system" had been the official cause of death.

After his funeral, Max had received multiple letters from her brother. All sent the day he over dosed. The first letter explained his reasons for what he did…Manticore. Manticore had caused him to kill himself. 6 months to the day, Manticore was brought down. Sighing again, Max replaced the picture in the box and closed it firmly. Firmly hiding the past again.