Title: She looks like an angel
Pairing: M/Z
Summary: This is an alternate universe fiction that uses spoilers from episodes "What the 411 on the DL" and "Cold Comfort." This first chapter is mostly about Zack's thoughts and feelings during his search for the other X5s leading up to when he finally finds Max.
Disclaimer: Dark Angel's characters and concepts don't belong to me.
Zack's POV
"She looks like an angel." I hadn't realized I whispered those words aloud the first time I saw Max after the escape. She was on her bicycle talking and laughing with a girl in front of some delivery place called Jam Pony. My eyes were immediately drawn to her but I still wasn't sure if it was really her, but at that moment she looked in my direction with a beautiful smile still claiming her full lips. The sun was behind her, making her dark hair glow while the wind played with it. She looked like an angel. It was the smile that first told me that the beautiful girl across the street was Max. Then I saw her eyes, those large, brown eyes that could get me to do whatever she wanted when we were kids, and I knew without a doubt that I had found her.
I had dreamt about this moment nearly every night after we first escaped. I was the C.O. of all the X5. They were all my responsibility. Of course, I wanted to find them all in order to look after them. But I never dreamed about finding the others. My dreams were only of Max. At first it was hard. The world was in chaos because of the pulse which made it all the more easy for us to disappear consequently it made it harder for me to locate everyone. It took me a whole year to find Zane and Thad. They had only made to just outside of Wyoming. Thad seizures were too severe for them to be able to travel too far. Even though they were practically right under Lydecker's nose, they managed to cover their tracks well and remain under the radar. I had no idea who had made it out and decided to risk going back to the Gillette area to see if I could find anyone from Manticore that could help. It was a stupid idea. I know. Luckily I bumped into Zane before I made it all the way back Six months after I escaped I had a pretty bad seizure and a nurse happened along. Because of the state of the world, it was easy to believe that an eleven year kid could be out on his own so she didn't question that. She also knew that no one was going to offer me health care either so instead she told me about tryptophan. She said it wasn't too hard to come by. It was sold in health food stores as an energy boost. It's also in milk. Most importantly, she told me it was sometimes used in homeopathy to control seizures. Bingo. Seizures terrified us in Manticore because it meant being carried away and dissected. I never thought what would happen to us once we started having them on the outside. Surely that would send up some red flags if one of us was sent to the hospital because of one. Of course all of us knew better than to check ourselves into a hospital if we had a seizure but sometimes they were so damn sudden and debilitating, that if they happened out in public we wouldn't be able to stop anyone from calling an ambulance and taking us to a hospital. I always carried a few bottles around with me for the exact purpose of handing them off to the other X5s once I came in contact with them. After a short reunion, I relocated Zane and Thad further from Wyoming. I then ordered them to split up. While traveling with them I had already come up with the plan to have a contact number for them to reach me should anything go wrong. It was hard for me to say goodbye to them; probably even harder for them to depart from each other after a year of being together and looking out for each other in this strange new world. But it had to be done. For the safety of all of us, it had to be done. So I set out again, alone, looking for the rest of us.
Hospitals and police stations were my main focus. The extensive military training we received from birth came in handy in the post pulse world for lives as petty criminals. We were good, but even I had gotten caught and arrested, so police records were as good a place as any to search for the others.
I found Ben and Domi next. I was thankful that I had split them in pairs when we escaped and that they remained together the whole time. But it didn't make it easier to deal with their complaints and protests when I told them they had to split up. After three years I located ten of them. Jondy was the last one I found. To this day I'm not sure if I truly believed only eleven of us made it out or if it was what Jondy had told me that made me stop searching. I had paired Jondy and Max together, so when I came across the twelve year old girl beating the crap out of three teenage boys, I was ecstatic to recognize that it was Jondy. Yes, I was happy to see Jondy, but not too deep down I was elated because I figured if this is Jondy than Max isn't too far behind. After quickly disposing of the three punks who had tried to jump her, Jondy took me back to where she had been staying. It wasn't much different from where the others had set up camp. She lived in a building with several other squatters. It was dank and dirty but we were no strangers to hard times and discomforts. It was there that she told me about what happened to Max the night of the escape.
"She fell through the ice. I called out to her but they were coming. There was no time…nothing I could do."
Looking at her while she told me this, I didn't see the face of a soldier I had trained with most of my life, I saw the face of a little girl who had lost her best friend and had been plagued with that memory for over three years. Inside my stomach was churning and my brain was spinning with the knowledge that Max was possibly lost forever. It was so unfair. Everything had been in vain. The whole reason I made us leave when we did was out of fear for what they would do to Max because of her seizures. My whole point of spending every day since the escape searching all over this broken country was to find Max and make sure she was okay. But it had all been for naught. I wanted to scream. I wanted to punch something…someone. I wanted to cry.
But I wouldn't. I was still the C.O. As I watched the tears spill down Jondy's face, I knew she needed me to be strong right now. I placed a clumsy hand on Jondy's shoulder and spoke words I didn't believe myself.
"Max is strong. She was second in command. If anybody could have gotten out okay, it was her. I'm sure she got out and I'll find her."
We left that next morning for a new location. I gave Jondy the contact number and an awkward hug goodbye. But for the first time since I had escaped, I had absolutely no plan of action. Max was either dead or back at Manticore. What was the point of continuing the search? I told myself this for three months, but finally I decided to believe in the words I had told Jondy. It was possible that Max was still out there. So I decided to make that my new mission: finding Max.
AN: Okay now that the background information is out of the way, the plot of the story can actually begin. Please R/R even though you probably have no idea where I'm going with this story.
Pairing: M/Z
Summary: This is an alternate universe fiction that uses spoilers from episodes "What the 411 on the DL" and "Cold Comfort." This first chapter is mostly about Zack's thoughts and feelings during his search for the other X5s leading up to when he finally finds Max.
Disclaimer: Dark Angel's characters and concepts don't belong to me.
Zack's POV
"She looks like an angel." I hadn't realized I whispered those words aloud the first time I saw Max after the escape. She was on her bicycle talking and laughing with a girl in front of some delivery place called Jam Pony. My eyes were immediately drawn to her but I still wasn't sure if it was really her, but at that moment she looked in my direction with a beautiful smile still claiming her full lips. The sun was behind her, making her dark hair glow while the wind played with it. She looked like an angel. It was the smile that first told me that the beautiful girl across the street was Max. Then I saw her eyes, those large, brown eyes that could get me to do whatever she wanted when we were kids, and I knew without a doubt that I had found her.
I had dreamt about this moment nearly every night after we first escaped. I was the C.O. of all the X5. They were all my responsibility. Of course, I wanted to find them all in order to look after them. But I never dreamed about finding the others. My dreams were only of Max. At first it was hard. The world was in chaos because of the pulse which made it all the more easy for us to disappear consequently it made it harder for me to locate everyone. It took me a whole year to find Zane and Thad. They had only made to just outside of Wyoming. Thad seizures were too severe for them to be able to travel too far. Even though they were practically right under Lydecker's nose, they managed to cover their tracks well and remain under the radar. I had no idea who had made it out and decided to risk going back to the Gillette area to see if I could find anyone from Manticore that could help. It was a stupid idea. I know. Luckily I bumped into Zane before I made it all the way back Six months after I escaped I had a pretty bad seizure and a nurse happened along. Because of the state of the world, it was easy to believe that an eleven year kid could be out on his own so she didn't question that. She also knew that no one was going to offer me health care either so instead she told me about tryptophan. She said it wasn't too hard to come by. It was sold in health food stores as an energy boost. It's also in milk. Most importantly, she told me it was sometimes used in homeopathy to control seizures. Bingo. Seizures terrified us in Manticore because it meant being carried away and dissected. I never thought what would happen to us once we started having them on the outside. Surely that would send up some red flags if one of us was sent to the hospital because of one. Of course all of us knew better than to check ourselves into a hospital if we had a seizure but sometimes they were so damn sudden and debilitating, that if they happened out in public we wouldn't be able to stop anyone from calling an ambulance and taking us to a hospital. I always carried a few bottles around with me for the exact purpose of handing them off to the other X5s once I came in contact with them. After a short reunion, I relocated Zane and Thad further from Wyoming. I then ordered them to split up. While traveling with them I had already come up with the plan to have a contact number for them to reach me should anything go wrong. It was hard for me to say goodbye to them; probably even harder for them to depart from each other after a year of being together and looking out for each other in this strange new world. But it had to be done. For the safety of all of us, it had to be done. So I set out again, alone, looking for the rest of us.
Hospitals and police stations were my main focus. The extensive military training we received from birth came in handy in the post pulse world for lives as petty criminals. We were good, but even I had gotten caught and arrested, so police records were as good a place as any to search for the others.
I found Ben and Domi next. I was thankful that I had split them in pairs when we escaped and that they remained together the whole time. But it didn't make it easier to deal with their complaints and protests when I told them they had to split up. After three years I located ten of them. Jondy was the last one I found. To this day I'm not sure if I truly believed only eleven of us made it out or if it was what Jondy had told me that made me stop searching. I had paired Jondy and Max together, so when I came across the twelve year old girl beating the crap out of three teenage boys, I was ecstatic to recognize that it was Jondy. Yes, I was happy to see Jondy, but not too deep down I was elated because I figured if this is Jondy than Max isn't too far behind. After quickly disposing of the three punks who had tried to jump her, Jondy took me back to where she had been staying. It wasn't much different from where the others had set up camp. She lived in a building with several other squatters. It was dank and dirty but we were no strangers to hard times and discomforts. It was there that she told me about what happened to Max the night of the escape.
"She fell through the ice. I called out to her but they were coming. There was no time…nothing I could do."
Looking at her while she told me this, I didn't see the face of a soldier I had trained with most of my life, I saw the face of a little girl who had lost her best friend and had been plagued with that memory for over three years. Inside my stomach was churning and my brain was spinning with the knowledge that Max was possibly lost forever. It was so unfair. Everything had been in vain. The whole reason I made us leave when we did was out of fear for what they would do to Max because of her seizures. My whole point of spending every day since the escape searching all over this broken country was to find Max and make sure she was okay. But it had all been for naught. I wanted to scream. I wanted to punch something…someone. I wanted to cry.
But I wouldn't. I was still the C.O. As I watched the tears spill down Jondy's face, I knew she needed me to be strong right now. I placed a clumsy hand on Jondy's shoulder and spoke words I didn't believe myself.
"Max is strong. She was second in command. If anybody could have gotten out okay, it was her. I'm sure she got out and I'll find her."
We left that next morning for a new location. I gave Jondy the contact number and an awkward hug goodbye. But for the first time since I had escaped, I had absolutely no plan of action. Max was either dead or back at Manticore. What was the point of continuing the search? I told myself this for three months, but finally I decided to believe in the words I had told Jondy. It was possible that Max was still out there. So I decided to make that my new mission: finding Max.
AN: Okay now that the background information is out of the way, the plot of the story can actually begin. Please R/R even though you probably have no idea where I'm going with this story.