My voice
by Haze
12.9.01
Summary: Zane finds out about Tinga, Zack and Max.
Disclaimer: I don't own Dark Angel. I wish I did. I don't. So nnhhhhh.
Rating: PG
Notes: I'm in Oceania, and America is half a world away, but everyone is shocked from these terrorist attacks. Everyone knows someone whose relatives died. It's all anyone talked about at skool - we even had practise evacuations incase this happened to us (I felt like I was in bad taste land). Even though I do give the American government a lot of crap about how much money they waste on bombs, and I do give capitalism a lot of crap, and even though New Zealand and the USA aren't always on the best of terms, we're all behind you guys in the US. You have the support of most of the world. But as well in this tragedy, there's the feeling of doom on most of the world that millions of innocent civilians will be killed if the USA decides to bomb a country. Everyone here's preaching 'make sure it's them before you bomb them' but we all have the feeling that thousands more innocents are gonna die before this is all over. And nobody wants that. So I based this story on what I feel right now.
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The message comes and you know there's nothing you can do except hope and pray - if you believed in that stuff then you'd pray. It doesn't set in for a while. You lost three siblings all in one go, how can you accept that?
My thoughts aren't helping. Spring just stopped by, and I told her, and she said she was sorry, and now she's gone. I can't really remember her leaving. Did I yell at her to go? Did I cry so much she decided to leave? I touch my face and I'm crying now.
You should get up and go to work. You should cope. You should get on with your life. But you can't, can you? Krit and Syl acted normal. They didn't fall all over you crying. They just told you, shook their heads when you offered them a place to stay, and said they had see Jondy soon, so they better leave. You're just the weak one. weakweakweakweakweakweakweak
Shut up! I wish Jondy was here. She's always a comfort, but right now she's gangbanging with the west dragons in San Fran, wearing spiky jewellery and tattooing the underside of her left arm, like all the dragons do.
Spring and Anzac and Harlem and all the others all came to see me. They didn't really say anything. I guess spring told them. They brought food and little notes with pictures they'd written. I don't know about the little colourful notes, but the food made me feel better. I forget to eat - I'm so locked up in my own thought. I think, what did they wish before? I can't even say before what. What did Maxie wish, when she collapsed, shot through the heart by herself? Did she wish she coulda met up with all of us? I wish I'd seen her one more time, and talked to her, and got to know the new eleven-years-older Max. Was she still the same little sis? Was she still quiet? Was she still the brave one? Would Jondy and her be the attitude twins they were at manticore?
To the very end, dragged into manticore, unwillingly, I imagine Zack planning their escape, looking for tactical weaknesses, thinking strategy. He never changed. Perhaps Anzac is right - maybe people don't change. At least not on the inside.
And Tinga. I could never go see her. I never saw her in her perfect life, with her husband and son and house and nice job and nice clothes and nice nails. I wish she hadn't died. I wish it so much I close my eyes and when I open them, I expect it to be true. I'll never have a perfect life, neither will Zack, neither will Krit or Syl, judging by the way they chewed me out for the tactical weaknesses inherent in my apartment. As if I care. Maybe Maxie coulda had a perfect life, maybe Brin coulda, if Jondy just stopped banging maybe she could, they had possibilities. But Tinga actually achieved it, and it seems unbelievable that it was taken away from her so quickly. That she died, quietly, without any of us there, in what they told me looked like a tank. Like she was an experiment. I hate thinking of us as experiments.
Cry cry cry, is that all you do? You're a little girl on the inside, Zane-boy. Your little sisters are tougher than you. Spring's little girl is tougher than you. Anzac knows a cat who's tou-
The voice doesn't matter anymore. I sit on edge, the feeling of doom superimposed on me. It's my shadow. I worry and worry and there's nothing I can do on my own but I always think maybe....maybe I could do this or that but the small part of my brain that I trust to have sense says it'd never work. But when has worrying ever helped anyone? I don't care about the what ifs anymore. I just want my family together, and I would be happy if it only happened once. Then I could be happy. And I can never be rich or powerful or normal, so I'll strive to be happy.
In the morning I'll put on my jacket. I'll make sure the money is still in my pocket. I'll go to work and say goodbye to spring and the rest and then I'll kidnap Jondy and Krit, cuz I always got on best with them, and we're going to the guy who was on the broadcast. The guy who'll tell us how to hack in to the manticore database and how to find Lydecker. We're gonna be together even if it means risking everything.