(Never) Too Late to Apologize
By: AndiKaneUnderwood
AU: Alpha/Beta/Omega, Mob
Portia "Two" Lin: Alpha (strength, nanites)
Mercy "Three" Boone: Alpha (hunting)
Griffin "Six" Jones: Beta
Ryo "Four" Ishida: Beta
Zoe "Android" Palmer: Beta (fighting skills)
Nyx Harper: Beta
Emily "Five" Kolburn: Omega (technology)
Derrick "One" Moss: Omega (empathy, 'human lie detector')
If there was ever a time that Six regretted being a part of the CIA, it was now.
He hadn't wanted to turn in the Pack after they'd treated him with such kindness, after they'd allowed him in their family, but duty called.
Griffin regretted every second of it as his new family was knocked unconscious and dragged away from their hideout.
He knew for damn sure they'd never forgive him.
Dark Matter~Dark Matter~Dark Matter
They called him in to talk to Zoe first.
"What are you needing from her?" Griffin asked, standing outside the doors to the room they had the cybernetic Human caged in.
"She's the only on with any kind of access to the Raza Pack's computers without the passwords. We need her full cooperation." replied the technician.
Griffin could almost hear Five's laughter at the idea of the Android willingly giving these people access to the computers she'd been sworn to protect.
He could faintly hear Three's snarled, "No one harms our Android and gets away with it."
Griffin regretted ever contacting the CIA.
He could still hear the screams and the sounds of fighting as his former family woke up. Some while still being transported.
He stepped into the room almost hesitantly. "Zoe, you need to give these people what they want. It'll go a lot better for you if you'd just cooperate."
The blonde Beta smiled in her absent way. "I'll do no such thing."
"Why not, Zoe?" Griffin asked in exasperation.
"Because you are not an Alpha and therefore cannot order me to do anything. You are also not a part of the Pack. It is, in fact, arguable if you ever were." Zoe replied, smile brightening.
Griffin sighed and shook his head; leaving the room.
He knew it was a failure. He wasn't sure why he'd tried.
Dark Matter~Dark Matter~Dark Matter
The next member of his former Pack that he visited was Four.
Four didn't even acknowledge his existence beyond a grunt and a soft, "Agent."
Then, it was back to practicing weaponless combat.
(Angry black eyed stare boring right into Griffin's as the Beta woke up. Powerful arms pounding against the invisible doors that kept him in.)
Griffin sighed, sitting outside Four's cell and watching as Four ignored his presence until Griffin finally stood to leave.
"If you didn't want to really be a part of our family, you simply had to say so." Four called.
Griffin stopped in his tracks and looked back. Had he really just heard...?
But Four was still ignoring his presence, eye closed and blocking the rest of the world out.
Griffin almost wanted to sit down and cry.
On his way back to his quarters, he met Nyx.
Nyx didn't let him speak first.
She punched him first, then got up in his face. "I don't know who you think you are, Whatever-the-Hell-Your-Name-Is, but you listen to me."
(Furious dark brown eyes that matched the color of her skin as she placed her hand against the invisible barrier that kept them separated.)
Nyx folded her arms, "I was just getting to know you, I liked you, thought you were alright. Different from other agents. I thought that you'd really changed and you were with us 'til the end. Then, I come here and suddenly I'm told that your dumbass got me thrown back in jail. I was so damn angry with you and I haven't known you even half as long as the others. I know damn well how it feels to be used, you know that well. So, you better believe when I tell you that you better never do anything like this again if you're lucky enough to somehow get back into Two's good graces.
"Now, I'll forgive you, I have forgiven you, because you thought you were doing what's right. I think that somewhere along the line you may have taken a hit to the head though. You seem to have forgotten that we're your family." Nyx finished her speech with a sad look and soft eyes.
"Nyx..." Griffin murmured. "Nyx, I'm so sorry."
"Ain't nothing to apologize to me for anymore, Agent." Nyx replied, then continued on her way.
Griffin slowly walked back to his quarters; trying hard not to cry.
Dark Matter~Dark Matter~Dark Matter
He met Three and Two after that.
Two he saw while on rotation for lunch. He looked up and there she was, watching him from across the room.
She came closer to him, moving almost as if she where gliding across the floor; her feet not touching the ground.
She slid into the seat across from him and gazed at him with piercing brown eyes.
Her voice was quiet when she spoke. "I hope it was worth it." she murmured.
(Rage filled cedar brown eyes that didn't meet his as she was carted away.)
Griffin blinked once, twice, then replied, "What?"
"Whatever possessed you to turn on us like you did. You saw what happened to Corso, and that was just for hurting one member of my Pack. We let you into our home, gave you food off our table, and clothed you with our own fabrics. If this is our repayment, then I sincerely hope that whatever they're giving you was worth it."
Two stood, dusted off her jumpsuit, and turned away.
"Two!" Griffin cried, jumping up from his seat.
Two halted and glanced over her shoulder. "Yes, Agent?"
Griffin hesitated. "I... I'm sorry." he pleaded.
Two hummed. "Sorry isn't going to fix this, Agent."
Griffin watched as Two walked away, tears brimming in his eyes.
As he turned, Griffin sat back down and put his head in his hands.
"Oh, don't tell me you're feeling sorry for yourself, Agent. That's just bad for business." snarked a female voice.
Griffin looked up, this time into the angry blue eyes of an Alpha he knew very well.
"Three."
She nodded, "Who else would I be, Agent?"
(There was a look in her eyes that angry didn't cover, it was downright murderous as she glared at him sharply while she was forced inside of a cage.)
There was a short blue blink of light and Griffin looked down. "They didn't..."
Three tossed her head back and laughed. "Oh, they did. Inhibitor colors on me and One. Can't have us communicating to form an escape, can they now? Don't tell me you didn't know, cause I know damn well, you did. You talked about it a lot. How you hated watching these things get put on, how scared the Omega looked, how angry the Alphas would become when kept from their Mate for too long."
Griffin wanted to be sick. The Inhibitor didn't belong on Three.
Griffin watched in horror as the color beeped at him. "What about-"
"Destroyed." Three interrupted. "Said they put it in the fire to burn. Is this what you wanted?"
Three stared long and hard at her former friend and Griffin wanted to apologize. But it wouldn't help and the words didn't come and Three's eyes narrowed before she huffed and whipped around, leaving just as quickly as Two.
Griffin laid his head down on his desk and held back his tears.
Dark Matter~Dark Matter~Dark Matter
Five was the next visit.
He slinked up to the Omega containment cell that housed his friend.
"Well, if it isn't the traitor." spoke the girl.
(The smaller Omega hadn't met his eyes since the day before her capture when he apologized for treating her like a child.)
This was probably the visit he was least looking forward to. Five could be damn scary and he'd seen her wield her double edged knife. She was terrifying with that thing. Even more so without.
Five hadn't turned around, it was unlikely she even would.
Much like Four, she had mastered the art of ignorance. Similar to Two, Five had become a superb ice queen when the situation called for it.
She'd make a fine Second-In-Command when she was older, but there was no way in Hell Two was letting her leave, so it would have to be the Raza Pack.
"What brings you here, Agent?" the turquoise haired girl asked. "Perhaps you'd like to apologize to me."
Griffin stepped back, shocked by how right she was.
"I am here to apologize, yeah."
There was a pause. Then Five glanced over her shoulder, eyes accusing. "I don't want to hear it."
Griffin hummed. "And why not, Five?"
She stood furiously and turned and Griffin's throat closed up like someone was crushing it.
There were several scratches and a black eye on Five's face, brown eyes angry and narrowed. "Have you ever wondered what they do to an Omega in prison?"
Griffin's breath caught in his throat.
"The Betas try to keep the Alphas away, but there are more Alphas in this prison than any others because it's specifically designed to contain Secondaries. So, the Betas, they get overrun and overruled. And I'm not on the same schedule as Two and Three, so they can't help fend the unwanted attention off.
"And the guards? Oh, they don't care, as long as they get to watch the Omega get screwed, they're happy. So, the Alphas surround the unsuspecting Omega while they're eating lunch and drag them away. As soon as the Omega realizes what's going on, the Alphas start pouncing. They rip up the clothes first, then they start in on the throat. Because that's what they really want, an Omega to call their own.
"Then, they go for the kill." Five's voice dropped to a whisper. "That's why most Omegas end up pregnant within three weeks."
Griffin gasped. "They didn't..."
He wouldn't be able to forgive himself if Five was raped because of him.
"Luckily for me, One managed to snag the lunch schedule and get a time close to mine. Luckily for you, he got me out of there. Luckily for both of us, I'm fine. But I don't want your fucking apologizes, Agent Jones. If you were truly Pack, if you were really family, you'd never have dared in the first place!" Five snarled, teeth bared and eyes narrowed.
Griffin stepped back again.
"Five..." he murmured, eyes startled and sad, "I..."
Five growled, a harsh, guttural noise; her eyes narrowed further. "No. You no longer have the right to call me that. You lost it when you turned us in." she snarled.
Then she turned away from him, her icy, indifferent demeanor sliding into place like an old sweater.
Griffin's eyes filled with tears and he couldn't hold them back if he wanted to. "I'm so sorry."
Five didn't respond, but her silence was enough of an answer.
Griffin left the containment cells and somehow managed to make it to his office before he broke down and cried.
Dark Matter~Dark Matter~Dark Matter
After visiting Five, Griffin waited three days to go and visit the last of them.
If Five was who he was apprehensive about before, then he was hesitant about meeting One now.
Because, One was probably the most terrifying person in the Raza Gang.
After all, when he'd first come to the gang, he knew nothing about combat. Then he was trained by not just one, but three members of the Raza Pack.
Three taught him how to shoot, how to hit the target even on the outer most edges of his range.
Two taught him hand to hand combat, how to use his opponent's weight, height, and skills against them.
Four taught him how to find the weak points of a person's body, how to use them to his advantage.
Five had mentioned teaching him how to hack, because he already knew how to pick locks and avoid cameras.
Griffin had meant to teach him how to pilot, but then he'd missed too many check ins with his handler and he had to bring the Raza Gang in now or lose his job and be branded as a criminal for the rest of his life.
Griffin had been stupid enough to question his place in the Pack and turn his former family in.
He'd apologized to the rest of them, even when it hurt. Now he had to apologize to One.
And face the consequences because if Three had been correct then he wouldn't like what was about to come.
He stopped in front of the Isolation Ward where One had been taken when he caught a whiff of Three getting hurt and had gone Feral when he couldn't reach her.
Three, having no idea this was going on, was blissfully unaware that her Mate really needed her until she was forced into the Isolation Ward herself to calm One down. She yelled for three solid minutes and then demanded they take off her Inhibitor so she could calm him down the way she always had.
That had been almost seven hours ago and Three had been pulled out of the room after six hours.
What sucked about prison? Alphas and Omegas where kept far away from each other on separate ends of the prison. The Isolation Wards for each where a short walk from the cells.
Griffin made the walk in record time. He tapped lightly on the door of Isolation Cell One. "Derrick Moss, stand against the walls."
Griffin didn't make any attempt to disguise his voice, he wanted One to know it was him.
There was a pause and a shuffle. "Sitting in bed against the wall work for you?" asked the Omega.
Griffin decided to ignore protocol just this once. It was One; whatever happened to Griffin, he deserved it.
"I'm coming in." he called, opening the door.
He stepped inside and looked over the room.
The bed was still made, One perched on top; leaning back with his eyes closed and his head back.
(His dark eyes where sad as he watched, hardly registering that he was being moved again; only having eyes for the traitor in front of him.)
The Inhibitor collar on his neck blinked steadily on. "What brings you here, Six?"
Griffin thought he might just break down and cry again, seeing the pale color of One's skin and the tension in his shoulders. "Came here to apologize."
He hadn't heard that name in almost three months. It had been a few years since he'd earned it.
"Why? For turning us in? For Two, Three, Five and me getting locked up on opposite sides of the building? For these collars?" One questioned him, but never once moved from his position against the wall. He didn't even open his eyes.
It was probably for the better. If One were to meet Griffin's eyes, the Beta may just start crying all over again.
"For all of that, yeah. I- I wasn't thinking. I was going to be branded a criminal. Not that I hadn't been already, but I could always get out of it with the SFPD. And then it happened and now it's all a big mess and I... I'm so sorry." Griffin slumped and heaved an exhausted sigh.
There was silence.
Three heartbeats. Nine. Fifteen. Twenty heartbeats.
"You don't have to apologize to me, Six. I know what it feels like to think you're doing what's right, what you need to do. Then when it happens and you're looking back, you see it wasn't what you wanted after all." Griffin looked up suddenly, head snapping up to meet the russet brown of One's intelligent eyes.
"What?" Griffin asked.
"You don't have to apologize. You thought you were doing what was right, you didn't put these collars on me or Three. You certainly didn't put me in here. So, drop the guilt, okay?" One looked so sincere and if Griffin didn't know the Omega's quirk, then he'd think One was bullshitting him.
"At the very least I can offer one comfort." Griffin smiled sight, holding up the keys to the Inhibitor. "Snagged these from the Holding Cells after I got Morse to sign off on the papers. You and Three don't have to be in those collars anymore."
One grinned brightly, leaning forwards and examining the metal. "No shit?"
Griffin chuckled, "Think you'd be able to tell, wouldn't cha?"
One turned, presenting his back and the lock on the collar.
Griffin quickly stripped his former Pack Mate of the offending object, going a little slower than usual; having already done Three earlier that day.
One breathed a visible sigh of relief, tension across his shoulders relaxing as his eyes flickered closed. He already looked a little better, color coming back and eyes getting brighter.
"I also found this." Six held out the deep blue, silk lined collar Three had gotten One about eight months after they started dating. "The guards told Three that they torched it, but prison wardens are never so careless with their prisoners' personal effects. If they keep them, then a collar is used for evidence and DNA for forensics."
One reached out hesitantly for the object that meant so much to him. He took it like it was a precious gem (which, to him, it was) and slowly clasped it around his neck. He looked up at Six with tears in his eyes. "Thank you."
Six smiled, nodded, and then stood. "I'll tell the warden to reschedule you and Five. Maybe you can get closer times to Two and Three."
One nodded, one hand running his fingertips over the returned collar and the other snapping out and catching his hand.
Six looked back at One. "Yes?"
"The others will forgive you in their own time. Don't change a thing from what you did before." One told him.
Six smiled and nodded. "Thank you."
One let go and nodded back, "Good night, Six."
"Good night, One." Six returned, then he left the cell and locked the door behind him.
He went back to his office, feeling better than he had in three months.