Disclaimer: ::Sniffle, Sniffle:: I don't own Dark Angel, Max, Alec or any of the other characters on the show, but all the others are mine.
Summary: Max is placed in between a rock and a hard place soon after her daughter, Rachel, is born. What will she do in the face of this new danger?
Parings: M/A and many others
Author's note: I know I haven't written anything in a long while but you know what school's like. ::Shrugs:: And as for the other stories that I started… lets just hope that this one gets farther along then they did.
If Only it was That Easy –part one
I stare intently down upon the flushed face of the infant cradled in my arms and I wonder if this is what it's all about. If it's all just about waking up to a new day not knowing what you'd fine and getting this… this wonderful surprise. The ultimate surprise of a new life and the joy of knowing that it came form you. And for this moment as I sit here in the unnervingly white hospital room I forget about the normals who call for our blood and the shitty weather and the poor supplies and all I can think about is the tiny life I hold in my unclean hands.
I never asked to be a mother. Especially with what's going on now. But as I sit here it feels like the most natural thing in the world. And finally I get just what Tanga meant, life just isn't complete with our your own child. So for now screw the rest of the world because right now my babies the only thing that matters.
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Alec paces the hospital corridor anxiously his hands behind his back and his head bowed. On the bench across from him OC and Sketchy's eyes follow his progress back and forth, back and forth across the light blue and white-checkered floor.
They had never trained him for this. But then again, he thought, they had never expected this either. They hadn't planned it. They wanted perfect soldiers not daddies pacing the floors waiting for their babies to come into the world. Why was she taking so long!?!
"Dam boo take it an easy already!" OC finally cries taking her head in her hands. "It ain't like boo's dieing in there she's only having a baby."
"Yeah! Man your making me dizzy." Sketchy added. Alec stopped mid stride to look over at his two friends and smiled sheepishly.
"Sorry guys." Alec nervously ran his hand through his hair as his leg attempted to drill a hole in the tiled floor.
"Calm down boy!" OC commended. " Look, you going all to pieces like this ain't gonna get it over with any faster so, Sit!" She pointed sternly to the empty space besides her on the bench. No sooner had Alec sat then he popped back up again as a nurse excited the room where they were keeping Max.
"Whoa! There Alec!" She cried in surprise putting her hands up in front of her. "Where's the fire?"
"Is she ok? Can I see her?" Alec asked craning his neck to see past the blond nurse.
The young women laughed lightly and then smiled. " Yes, Alec you can see her now. But first," She said grabbing his shirt as he tried to run through her. " How about a hello Lexie, Thank you Lexie."
"Yea, yea, hello and thanks Lexie." He said still not looking at the girl in front of him. "Can I go now?" He cried impatiently still trying to develop x-ray vision so that he could see into the room before the door was actually opened.
"Okay, ok." Lexie relented and gracefully stepped to the side allowing Alec passage into the room. Lexie smiled happily as she turned to OC and Sketchy. " After a few minutes you two can go in, but I'd give them a moment alone." Lexie's smile darkened as she turned from the waiting normals.
The labor had been a long and hard one. It was one of the ones that Lexie hated to be a part of because both mother and child could have perished in the birth. Thankfully neither had, Lexie thought, as she thought of how Alec would have taken it. Relieved that it was all over Lexie shook her head, her steps becoming nothing more then echoes in the quite halls of the hospital.
"Hey." Alec said leaning causally against the closed door.
"Hey yourself." Max answered looking up for the first time since she had been handed the baby.
"So," Alec began as he crossed the room coming to a stop only to lower himself unto the bed besides Max. " Who's this little stranger?"
Max beamed up at Alec before answering. " While I was hoping to name her Rachel if you don't mind." She added at the darkening of his hazel eyes.
"Why?" He asked not looking Max in the eyes as she searched his hardened face. Instead he gazed down upon the small face of his newborn daughter.
Rachel she wanted to name her Rachel. That one name out of all the rest conjured such memories for the young man as he sat there. In his mind's eye Alec saw a curly haired brunette with a disarming smile and sparkling blue eyes. He saw her besides him as they played the piano. Then they were in her father's pool and she kissed him. From there the memories turned bad. He saw her face as he revealed himself and his job to her. Lastly though he saw her still face and cold hands as he sat with her a hospital room much like this one. Rachel such a powerful name and yet, even knowing it's history Max still wanted to use it for their child.
" Are you sure Max?" He asked still deeply in thought.
" I'm sure. Alec?" She asked shifting the baby to one arm and then taking his large rough hand in her small one. "Are you ok with this?" And then Alec remembered something.
~Flash Back~
"Max?"
"Yeah, Alec?" Max asked grabbing a handful of chips from the plastic blue bowl on the coffee table.
"If you had kids what would you name them?" Alec stared down at his hands clasped in his lap.
"What!?!" Max cried. Her chocolate brown eyes going wide and her handful of Doritos falling to the floor. Quickly she flipped her feet off the top of the couch and twisted so that she could retrieve her lost snack. "See what you made me do!" She exclaimed punching him in the thigh on her way up. "Are you serious?" She asked when he didn't respond.
"You don't gotta answer if you don't wanna." He replied.
"While…" She began thoughtfully as she munched on a chip. "If it was a boy Ben and if it was a girl Eva."
"Who was Eva?" He asked looking down at her face as she resumed her position upside down on the couch.
"One of my sisters." She had answered forgetting her chips and sitting right way up. "She was our C.o.. Lydecker…" She paused just long enough to still the emotion the memory carried with it. Alec watched as she slowed her breathing as he had showed her how to just a couple of weeks ago, how she looked straight ahead at a fixed spot and willed all her painful memories into it. It only took a second to do but for Max it seemed like a lifetime. "Lydecker shot her on the night we were trying to escape. She had taken down one of the guards and then pointed her gun at him. He didn't hesitate." She finished in an impersonal monotone.
Alec draped an arm around her shoulders as they sat together in the silence some per pulse movie playing on the tube in front of them.
~End Flash Back~
"I thought,"He began. "That you wanted Eva to be your daughters name."
Max looked at him speciously. "How can you remember what I said almost a year ago yet you can't remember what I told you five minutes ago." She snapped her old fire returning to her chocolate brown eyes.
"Maaaxxxxx!!" He said pointing to the baby. "There're more important matters right now. Like naming our baby. I promise you can kick my ass later."
Narrowing her eyes she stabbed an accusing finger in his direction. "You better remember that later pretty boy." She teased.
Max sobered after a deep breath and a long look at the new life nestled safely in her arms. " She just looks like a Rachel. Don't you think so?" Max asked her beautiful face lit with some sort of inner light Alec didn't understand.
"She looks beautiful, Max, just like her mom." He extended one digit to gently stroke the infants face.
"But she has your eyes Alec," She pointed out and at once Alec knew she was right. " You know what Max?"
"What?" She asked in the same absent voice Alec had asked the question in.
"She does look like a Rachel."
"I told you so." Max said breaking the moment by sticking out her tongue. And then both tangencies grinned at each other. "Should we introduce her to her auntie Cindy and uncle Sketchy?"
"Yeah that sounds good." Alec said his finger moving all over the babies smooth surfaces causing her to smile.
"O Alec did you see that she smiled!" Max cried enthusiastically.
"Yeah," Alec said breathlessly. "I did."