A/N: Hold it right there. You've stumbled onto my latest AVP story, but before you read on beyond all this black text, there are some things you need to know. Ready?

After some amazing feedback, and taking some time to ponder, I've decided to assemble my ideas and create the story you see before you. I tell you this because this is a near-direct sequel to my one-shot The Boy and the Queen. I will try my best to make this readable enough, so that you do not have to read the prequel one-shot. But if you want to make my life easier, and yours as well, please visit my profile and have a read of it. It's 19 thousand-something words long, but it'll make some things clear, trust me. To recap it in the shortest number of words: it is basically a back story for some of the characters.

For those who have read The Boy and the Queen, sorry for the wait! I promise this time around that the ending will, in fact, END.

Anyway, I didn't want to interrupt you, Reader, with a wall of text, but I felt it was necessary. Thank you for your time and have a good day/night.

-xxx-

Prologue

Look Within

"Rose."

A whisper.

"Wake up, Rose."

He shook her harder.

"You got to wake up."

Stu. He's calling her. But for how long?

Rose woke up out of her sleep.

She glanced at the clock on the night table and saw it was half past five in the morning. Stu should be on shift, not here in the house. She then got her first good look at him and something leapt up inside her.

Her husband was pale. Deathly so. His eyes were filled with reserved pain. He had the car keys in one hand, and was using his other to shake her, even though her eyes were open.

"Stu, what is it?"

He didn't seem to know how to answer. He went to talk but stopped himself. For several seconds there was no sound in the house apart from the ticking of the clock.

"What's wrong?" she asked. She sounded stupid to her own ears. She knew what was wrong. The last time she saw Stu in this state was when his parents passed away. Today day was a long time coming, and wouldn't be much different.

"You got to get dressed, honey," he said. "Get the kid. Ten minutes."

"But…" she trailed off, getting out of bed. Nothing seemed right. Like a dream. She'd told herself for months that it had all been a dream. That all those nights passing were not real. It seemed that now the nightmare finally started.

"We don't want to be late, Rose. Get him and get dressed, quickly."

"Should we… Is there time to-"

"No, honey. No time for anything else. I'll meet you outside."

He left her there, cold and afraid and disoriented in her bare feet and nightie. It was like he'd gone mad. How could he make her wake up the kid? How could he be so eager to leave?

She went into the room that served as her son's room and stood for a moment in the doorframe, indecisive, looking at her sleeping child in his blanket. There was a faint hope she held onto – that this really was a vivid dream. It would pass, and she would wake in the morning like usual, feed her son and read the paper, and be making Stu's meal when he came home from his nightshift, another night on the docks. Soon he'd be on day's and not so angry and if he was sleeping with her she wouldn't have crazy dreams-

"Hurry!" he hissed at her, breaking that faint hope."For Christ sake woman, don't make this any harder than it has to be." He pointed at the boy in the blanket. "Get him dressed!" He dashed out of her sight, and she could hear the faintest sound of rummaging drawers.

She woke up her son, as soothingly as possible; the five-year-old was cranky at being awakened at this hour, and began to sob as Rose got him dressed. The sound of the child's crying made her more afraid than ever. He never cried in the nights, never cried ever. Only if something terrible was happening. Like now. Fear changed to anger as she saw Stu rush through the door, her handbag out as an offer.

"The kid dressed? Good. Get some clothes on, honey. We're as late as it is."

"Daddy?" their son asked, raising his arms. "Mummy?"

"It's okay, son," said Stu, and disappeared out of the room. A moment later Rose heard the sound of papers rustling. If it was the documents… it was the documents. This really was real, then. He appeared in the doorway again, this time with papers in his hands, just as his son started to sob again. He picked him up and murmured false reassurances.

Rose practically ran and got dressed. Pulling on her pants and jacket quickly. Stu was too busy calming his son to edge her to hurry. When she returned they were in the kitchen, Stu holding his son in his arms.

"Where we going?" asked their son.

"Out to a friend's place. Just for a little while," lied Stu, motioning for Rose to follow him. His eyes had that white, starey look. The horrible feeling in Rose's chest began to grow more and more as they left the kitchen.

Still half asleep, she followed him out to the driveway where their three-year-old car stood, being splotched by the drops of rain that had started to fall from Solaris' skies.

Stu put the child into Rose's hands as he got into the driver's seat. She stood for a moment by the passenger door, looking at their home they had spent five years in. All three of them. One happy family…

"Come on!" he said. "Get in, woman!"

When she did, he backed out, the headlights splashing over the house for a moment. They reflected in the windows, and to Rose they looked like hungry, scowling eyes.

He hunched over the steering wheel, his pale features illuminated by the dashboard lights. "We go, we come back. No waiting around, okay?"

She shivered and cupped her baby son's face, who was sleeping again. Stu put a hand on her leg briefly and said: "It'll be alright, honey.

"No," she said. Although the house had already disappeared behind them, she looked back with a faint hope of seeing it one more time. "No it won't. We shouldn't be doing this, Stu."

"I know. But we don't have a choice."

At that she burst into silent tears. She noticed Stu fidgeting, wanting to comfort her without stopping the car. He said or did nothing but drive on, which was probably for the best for both of them. Careful not to wake her child, she cried until dawn.

The Fallen World

Chapter 1

The Circle Opens

1

The Borderworld of Solaris rotated lifelessly on its axis. It's cities, once vibrant with festivities and cheer, were silent. The forests, the largest and thickest in the system, are now nothing more than clusters of dead husks. The Capitol, although a smouldering ruin, held what little life remained on the planet.

Parliament House, built to resemble those of the Earth, sat in the Capitols epicentre, crumbling in on itself. In all directions, deserted buildings rolled endlessly to the horizons. Above it all, a great cloud of Fog blanketed the city, only allowing the sun few precious moments to warm the cold streets below.

North of the Parliament House, a river cut through the Capitol, where it headed east into the ocean. The bridges that connected the South to the North are collapsed: some bombed, others rotten away.

The Fall had not been as harsh on the North as it had been to the South. More buildings stood, some even habitable. The Fog was thin, but still lethal to breathe in for anyone still alive below.

Indeed, despite the tragedy that had befallen the once peaceful planet, life still ebbed on. Pockets of humans and other species had tried to turn the power back on, tried to warm themselves on the cold nights. Tried to survive. There was no more living on Solaris – only survival. And only one 'pocket' of people had survived in the vain hope that someone was coming to save them.

But no one was coming. The Lieutenant was all too aware of the fact that this was on purpose, that if the public knew of what had happened here and who was to blame, there would be dire repercussions for those responsible.

More specifically, for Weyland-Yutani.

The Lieutenant had no proof the Company was responsible for all this mess, but he just knew. He was not what you'd call a 'model citizen'. He'd caused more trouble with them in a few months then the Rebels would in a lifetime.

Weyland would brand him a Rebel , if there were any of them left. True, he had survived much longer than he thought he would by allying himself with said Rebels, but he didn't care much for their cause or their goals.

All he wanted, was to get out.

That was why he took it upon himself to go and search the spaceport in the north-western district. Leading a squad of five others, he walked the streets sprawled with empty cars, eyes watching for any sign on movement. He was glad they encountered no one.

In lobby customs, he stood looking out over the empty runways. The only things using the strips were wrecks of planes, baggage carriers, and even a few station wagons. Probably due to the panicking civilians who were desperate enough to drive into the path of escaping shuttles.

One such shuttle had crashed close to the port. It stuck out there, laughing at him.

"Not a single one intact. Can nothing go right for once? Just… once…" The young Lieutenant looked down at his boots, not his own, no, they belonged to a man he had killed for, along with the combat armour he was wearing. Funny what it had all come to, killing others for their boots…

Turning on a heel, he stomped down customs and through a broken metal-detector to where his squad was scavenging.

When he saw them all squatting down and searching luggage bags, he called out to no one in particular, "Report. Was this trip worth the effort?"

Crouching before a bag that spewed out clothes, soaps and perfumes, a woman wearing tattered army gear stood. She went to him, machete in her hands. Behind the gas mask she wore, he could see the grim features she wore.

"Bit of food and water, Lieutenant. I'm guessing there's nothing out there?" She nodded her head to the airstrip outside.

"How perceptive of you, Karla," he replied bluntly. He folded his arms and kicked away a loose chip that was once part of the floor. It rattled down the lobby, echoing into the empty port. The squad stopped what they were doing and looked to one another, hesitant to break the silence.

He was hard on others, he knew. For years his frustration had been bottled up inside him, and he usually took things out on the few others who were surviving alongside him. But to follow his own adapting device was the only way to keep surviving.

Which became harder as time rolled by.

"I'm sorry," he sighed, rubbing his aching shoulder with a distracted hand. "Just a little grouchy today…"

"More than usual, sir?" asked Karla with a smirk. Her comment forced him to grin back. She always had a way of making him do that, even in grim times like this. Other officers disagreed with his liking to her, his lack of discipline, but it was what it was.

"Yeah… Yeah more than usual." He turned to the rest of the team, who had loosened up to the lighter atmosphere. "Pack it up, people. Let's head back."

Reaching over his head, the Lieutenant pulled into his hands a crudely-made rifle. Most of the weapons left behind after the Fall were worthless. Ammo was scarce, and no one knew how to make or maintain ranged weapons without the help of machines. The Lieutenant's own rifle only chambered one bullet at a time, and he only had a dozen on his person. Anyone who wasn't an officer carried a melee weapon.

Slinging what little supplies the port had to offer them, the squad trailed in the Lieutenant's shadow as he lead the way back to the entrance.

The sun outside was dull, warming the polluted world. It did not give off as much heat as it used to, it was like someone had just turned down the heating dial for the planet. Mornings and nights were so much more colder. Almost unbearably so thanks to the Fog.

The good news was it was mid-afternoon. Walking around the city at all was dangerous, but it was much better than during the night.

Creatures of all shapes and sizes, too scared to show themselves in the days when mankind walked the surface unchallenged, now had an entire ruined city to hunt for prey. As long as an officer was present, they were fine. But when it came down to it, it was human arms against claws. The Lieutenant was glad for his privileges.

Through the streets gridded with rubble, the Lieutenant and his team winded back towards the east. For most the journey there was no sound apart from the clopping of their boots. Just the light wind that screamed its way through the broken buildings on either side of the streets.

When they reached the inner district, fairly close to the Hub. A gunshot echoed off nearby, a few streets off to the left of them. Bullets were this worlds currency now, and hearing one being fired was a sign that something big was going down.

As the shot rang out his team halted instantly. As the crack faded, sounds of fighting reached their ears. The only thing that made sense was the Director had sent another team to check on the Lieutenant's own. The Rebels had not met a single pocket of survivors that had a gun before. And today was no different.

Using hand signals, the Lieutenant got his team moving through an alleyway towards the direction of the gunshot. Sulking in the alley was a blind and bloated beetle that dragged its intestines behind it like a bag of luggage, and it struggled to slip into a crack in the wall when they ran past it.

Emerging onto the next street, the Lieutenant looked left and right until spotting the source of the gunshot. A dozen metres down was a group of humans huddled around something in the middle of the street, slightly concealed by the Fog. They ran up behind them, calling out to make sure they were indeed Rebels. The five of them turned, ready to fight, but relaxed at seeing the team of similarly-dressed figures.

The officer in charge, holding a pistol that looked similar to the Lieutenants own rifle, waved them over. "Lieutenant. Good to see you made it. Did the spaceport-"

"No, sir. Nothing but scraps."

The Captain nodded gloomily. "Thought as much."

"You the one who fired that shot?"

"Affirmative. Group of guys tried to sneak up on us." He waved around him. Seven corpses lay strewn about them all. None of them were armed but that didn't matter. During the earlier times after the Fall, they had tried regrouping survivors. But after a while, the people brought in began fighting, and since the Rebels couldn't feed all the survivors, some had turned to cannibalism. The Director couldn't risk any more infighting, and ordered all outsiders to be treated as threats. Weapons or not. The Lieutenant couldn't tell if these ones were cannibals or not, but orders were orders.

"But that aint all," continued the Captain. "They put a boulder up on that roof there, tried to trap us, but look at what it landed on."

The Lieutenants group gathered round with the Captain's own to look at the sight. When he stared down at what the Captain was excited over, he gaped at what he saw.

Pinned underneath a giant slab of concrete, squirming and writhing in pain, was a large, black creature he had come to know all too well.

Faster, deadlier, and smarter than any other creature ever known to man, the Xenomorph lifted its elongated head to hiss at the pack of humans. It lashed its spiked tail around its side, but thanks to the trap they were out of its reach. Only the officers didn't flinch when it cried out in anger and pain.

"It's a miracle it didn't duck out of the way," commented the Lieutenant. At his voice the Xeno looked up at him, growling.

The Captain nodded. "Must've been desperate. Look at it, drooling all over the place. You hungry, buddy?" He leant on his knees, waving his hand just out of its deadly maw's reach.

"What're we going to do with it, sir?" the Lieutenant looked over and saw it was Karla speaking, looking at the Xenomorph with a blank stare.

"The Director's gonna be pleased that we got one alive." The Captain unsheathed a combat knife. "Who volunteers to carry it back?"

The Rebels all hesitated.

"No one's carrying it back," said the Lieutenant.

"I'll cut that big tail off of it, won't harm anyone any longer." The Captain walked behind the pinned Xeno. The Alien watched him and hissed in protest.

Slinging is rifle in front of his chest, aiming the barrel at the Xenomorph's head, the Lieutenant watched the eyeless stare of the Xenomorph for a moment. It did not try to duck away, did not even seem to sense the threat of a bullet to the head. It just looked up at him along the rifles barrel, almost waiting for him to make his move. To him they stared at one another for hours, but it really had only been a few moments.

He pulled the trigger. The Rebels grouped around him flinched, and all looked at him, puzzled and surprised at the thunderous sound his rifle made.

The Xenomorph went limp against the street.

"Goddamn!" yelled the Captain, grasping and lowering the rifle to the ground, the Lieutenants grip still firm on the trigger. "What are you doing, boy?!"

He threw off the Captain's grip. "Mercy," he said with sudden force. The Rebels murmured behind him.

"Mercy?" the Captain echoed. "You show mercy to this… thing! You just wasted a bullet, you fool! Do you have any idea what you've done?"

"We have no use for a live Xeno, Captain."

"Did you even listen to the Director?" He jabbed a finger at the dead Alien. "That was our opportunity to put Weyland down once we get off this rock!"

He stared silently at the Xeno he just killed. He showed mercy to. Was that really the reason for using a bullet? Or had he sensed something in that stare-off? A higher presence, watching over all of them? Now that the Xenomorph was dead, all his reasoning became fuzzy, hard to remember.

What happened to him? Why waste a bullet on something bound to be killed soon?

A voice in his head asked softly, Was it a waste? What would have become of the creature if it was captured?

Since when did he care of these things fates? They brought nothing but death with them. They can't be reasoned with. Can't be trusted…

There was something about that thing…

There was an instant of silence, and in it they all seemed to be looking at him, waiting for him to prove himself. And he wasn't doing it. The Captain stared daggers into the Lieutenant, as if he'd just murdered a dozen people.

"Rest assured, Lieutenant, the Director will be made fully aware of this breach. We all know what we saw, right?"

The group of Rebels around them quietened, aware that something unexpected had happened, but not knowing how to react.

"Back to base, everyone. Now." The Captain stormed off, both squads behind him. The Lieutenant glanced over his shoulder at the dead Xenomorph for a moment, unsure if his decision was the right one, before catching up to the group.

2

The Hub…

This place was the pinnacle of underground trafficking, once upon a time. Trains crisscrossed each other at this point effortlessly, taking everyone to any point in the Capitol and beyond. Now the survivors sleep on the silent tracks, hustled around small fires to warm there freezing hands.

The Lieutenant copied the rest of his squad, removing his mask and setting it on the armoury table at the entrance. He breathed in the dusty air. Not clean, far from that, but more breathable than the outside Fog. He kept his gun to his hip as he moved to his left and raised his hands to a lit barrel.

He thought on what everyone thought of him when he pulled the trigger. No doubt half the Hub knows about it now. Not everyone would be happy knowing there officer likes to waste ammunition without meaning, but it wasn't meaningless, was it? This world had been killed for too long that everyone forgot what mercy was like. The Lieutenant shook his head, not doubting the Director would pull rank on this one.

"You did what needed to be done, Lieutenant." To his side Karla approached and stood with him. Her features were soft, gentle. A warm smile greeted him, no longer covered by the mask she wore. "Don't apologise."

"Never have and never will," he replied, looking back at the burning ambers. "At least I have the stomach for these sorts of things."

"Director wants to see you. High priority."

"Not surprised. I'll head over, then."

"Good luck, sir."

She patted his shoulder before walking off. He watched her go, thankful at least one person had his back. He and Karla were close, and he often caught himself staring at her form like he was now. Letting emotions compromise his survival was dangerous and he knew it, but he couldn't help it after so long…

Sighing, he moved away from the barrel, gently pushing past huddles of people as he moved to the Director's quarters. It was the biggest building in the old metro, made from splintering wood, acting like an extension from a ticket booth. Ignoring the eyes staring at his back, he knocked on the door and waited.

"Enter," a voice ordered. The Lieutenant shut the door behind him, and sat in a chair in the centre of the office. In front of him, a desk, and behind that, the plump Director sat with his hands clasped in front.

"Lieutenant." The Director flashed him a smile. He nodded in return.

"Sir."

"A little birdie told me that you fired a bullet." The Director paused but the Lieutenant held his silence. "And it wasn't even at a target."

"Not true, sir. The Xenomorph-" But he was cut off.

"Lieutenant." The Director stood, his hands balled into fists. "How do you propose we expose Weyland for the horrors he did to our world?!"

"I-"

"A live creature is how!" The Director breathed heavily, eventually calming down. He took out a handkerchief from his breast pocket and wiped his sweating brow. "Opportunities like that come once in a lifetime."

"There are others, sir. There will be others."

"You better hope there will be. Because if I hear just one more slip from you." He leaned forward over the desk. "Just… one. You'll be out on the streets with only one bullet. And that bullet will be for you."

He nodded. "Understood."

"Don't make me regret making you an officer, boy. I saved you. It was me who gave you this life. Don't disrespect me again."

"I won't, sir."

"Last chance, Lieutenant. Dismissed."

"Sir."

The Lieutenant stood and went to the door. He expected the plump man behind him to say some small remark, but he closed the door without incident. How the Director looked that fat wasn't beyond the Lieutenant. He ate everything cause he owned everything. Everyone else was naturally thin.

The Lieutenant walked into his own little corner of the metro, near an exit tunnel blocked off by rubble. What horrors lay on the other side was unknown, but at least no one came over to bother him when he laid on his bedroll for a few hours, trying to sleep. He kept thinking about the Xenomorph he killed, and what repercussions it would have. He decided just to forget it, and think about surviving tomorrow when the next day came.

For now, he slept.

But the Heart of the Xenomorph's Hive was wide awake.