Disclaimer: I do not own Dark Angel or its characters.

A/N: I am still working on Manticore Asylum, Sorry I haven't updated recently but this popped into my head and insisted on being written. So hope you like it. This is a one shot. please read and review! It's much appreciated!

She couldn't help but believe, it was all her fault. She convinced them to stay; to rally against the ordinaries for a chance…just a chance to be free. Mole had been right all along, they would never be accepted and now they were gone, all of them, gone. She kept hoping she'd wake up and that this would all be just a really, unbelievably horrible nightmare. Her heart was aching, tears streaming down her grit and blood covered face as she let the destruction around her sink in. She didn't know if anyone had made it, it all had happened so fast. One minute she's talking to Mole about supply runs and security needs, the next he's tackling her to the ground to cover her. She wasn't sure if the blood on her was her own or his. She wasn't sure how long she had been under Mole's lifeless body.

As she took in the scene around her she numbly stumbled through the rubble. TC had been leveled, with one single, solitary bomb. It hadn't been the familiars that had destroyed them, but the ordinaries. The people they had served with, the people they had saved, time and time again, even if they hadn't known it at the time. The people whom for so long, she longed to be a part of had killed her family. She had to find someone…anyone alive. But everybody she came to was lifeless, people she knew, and some she didn't. She stumbled around for what seemed like hours. She had come across Gem and Dalton, Luke and Dix and others. But the two people she wanted to find, that she needed to find were not among the rubble. As she neared what had been the makeshift nursery, what little composure she had left was gone. She sunk to her knees, head in her hands and wept. The search was hopeless. They were all gone…all of them…gone.

Then a sound echoed in her ears, an amazingly, agonizingly wonderful sound. Howling. Someone was howling, but not just anyone. She recognized that howl. Joshua...with energy she didn't know she had left she ran towards the sound. Faster than she had ever run in her life. As she neared him her heart stopped. He was cradling someone. A hazel green eyed, annoyingly charismatic someone, who didn't seem to be moving.

He was gone. She knew it before she even got to them. There was only one heart beat other than her own, only one intake of breath other than her own. She felt what was left of her heart shatter into pieces.

"Max, he…he's.."

"I know Josh."

"He saved me. Saved others. Running, in and out, back and forth for people. Looking for you, said he had to find you. What left of building collapsed his last time; tried to warn him…I…too late little fella…" Josh put his head down as tears filled his eyes. He hugged Alec to his chest.

Tears filled her eyes. He had come back, for her. He had been safe and he came back to save others. She had been so very wrong about him from day one. She wiped the tears from Joshua's eyes not saying a word. She stood up and took Alec's body from him. The military would be coming in soon. Once the dust settled. She couldn't leave him behind not after he had saved others and come back for her. She kissed his death chilled lips and tears ran down her face. They had to get out of here. She couldn't make his death in vain. Josh had said the others had gone to ground. Now it was their turn. As they reached the tunnel she took one last look at the place that had been more of a home to her in the last 8 months than any other place she'd ever been her whole life. One last look at where she had met her family. Each and every single crazy part of it. As much as it pained her to leave Mole and the others behind she couldn't risk it, going back. It would be a death sentence. And she couldn't leave Josh alone in the world. She only hoped that if anyone else was left they would find a way out on their own.

That had been 2 years ago. Had she known how it all would end, she would have done things so very, very different. But you can't go back, and you can't change the past. So she moved forward and they did the best they could, her and Joshua. She stood at his grave just outside Seattle, with her daughter in her arms. A beautiful little brown haired girl with hazel green eyes and a spunk that mirrored her fathers; her name, Alex. She hadn't had a chance to tell him before the attack, but she could feel him with her every day, walking this journey with her, watching over them. So she kept moving forward. For his memory and for her sake, for Joshua and the others who got away that day. She knew now that they might never have the freedom they had hoped for, but they had each other and for her, for her family that was enough. It had to be. They had lost way too much for it not to be.

As the wind blew through her hair she closed her eyes, and for a moment she could feel him there and tears slid down her face. It was time for them to go. As she put her daughter down, holding onto her hand Alex walked towards the makeshift headstone marking his grave, leaned down and kissed it. Her words, both breaking and warming her mother's heart.

"I love you, daddy"

PLEASE DONT HATE ME! It kept running through my mind and had to be written... sorry. Read and review please and thank you!