Title: A Dream to Hold
Author: sue
Rating: PG13
Disclaimer: None of the characters are mine.
Summary: Max was captured by Manticore but something was holding her back from escaping.
A/N: I wrote this piece for the Mac/Apr/May 2011 Challenge at Raising Hell Forum. Yes, almost two years ago. Anyway, I hope all of you will enjoy this story. Thank you!
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A Dream to Hold
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The dream is always the same.
A red slash of rage hovering over a dark spill of despair. Waves of crippling fear and searing pain. Of faceless form ripping vital part of herself away. She attacks, cries out and curses but the shadow just melts back into the inky darkness.
Leaving her battered, stripped bare to the bone and alone.
Alone to drown in the deafening silence. Alone to suffocate in the betrayal. Alone to nurse her mutilated heart.
And alone to cry at the sight of her empty arms.
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Her eyes fluttered open to stare at the ceiling, her pupils dilating in the dim lighting. A frown was etched deep in between her brows when she remembers the nightmare was her life now.
She could picked up the constant thud of boots as its owners manned the perimeter and the moon's placement told her it was sometime after 4 am. Sitting by the edge of her cot with her head against the cold wall, she ran a shaking hand through her matted hair. Even after five years, the dream was always the same.
The dark room swallowed her form as she slipped in, the shadow embracing her like a mysterious lover. There was a combination of intensity and sadness surrounding her features as she leaned against the wall, waiting for his arrival. Her eyes flicked down to her wrist, checking the time before quickly slipping into mission mind frame.
She scanned the small room, taking in every minute detail, noting the entrance, exits and other possible factors. In her mind she could see the labyrinth of interconnected hallways outside and if she knew him, and knew him she did, he'd go in through here first. There was only the biometric sensor waiting at the control room between him and the mainframe he was after.
The black suit she wore blended perfectly with the shadows and she was virtually invisible in the dark room. Time was a flutter of butterfly wings; too soft to feel, too tiny to see, but it flew steadily past. She closed her eyes and pushed everything away, concentrating on taking deep breaths. In the dead silence she could hear her own heartbeat thudding steadily but all of a sudden it picked up speed.
She opened her eyes, alert and ready but still she couldn't sense anything out of the ordinary. She kept her position though and mere minutes later, with a gust of cold air, he landed noiselessly from the opened air duct, as graceful as their feline DNA demanded.
She noticed that his hair was longer, the light strands whispering against the dark collar of his high sweater and he looked leaner than before. Her lips moved slightly at the faraway memory of nagging him to at least take a bite of something before he starved himself. Apparently, no one pester him like her anymore. He stiffened suddenly and she knew she had been made. She shoved any emotion she could have felt and straightened to meet him.
"You're on time."
"Max." Her name rushed out of his lips in a flurry of air. Even in the darkness she could see the shock stamped on his suddenly pale face. "Oh god, Max. It's you."
His words held a twin note of wonder and joy and she had to forcefully scrape away the guilt she would feel before shoving the image of the girl in front of her mind's eye. She was the priority at the moment.
"I knew you'd find a way to get out."
"I was not forced to stay. They didn't handcuff me to the table, if that's what you're saying." Her eyes were mirror images of unreadable masks. After five years of Manticore, she had perfected the look.
"God, Max. I've looked for you. I never stopped."
The pain in his voice slashed her with its intensity but the wall she put up took the brunt of the force and she didn't waver. "You shouldn't, there's nothing to find."
"No, no… they've gotten to you. It's been five years, I understand that. But Max, please... come with me."
"For what? There's nothing waiting for me outside now."
"Nothing? Like hell, Max! I'm waiting for you! And Cindy! Did you know she moved into TC?" He saw a flicker of something over her blank face and pushed forward. "Yeah, she doesn't care that the place will kill her but she chooses to be there. The first place you'll head when you made it out." The scowl evaporated into a weak grin and his tone dips. "She bosses over everyone after the third day. Even Mole can't say no to her face now. Come on Max, let's go home."
"Why don't you come with me? Manticore has been looking all over for you." She took a couple of measured steps towards him. "I didn't know you had it in you, to top Manticore's most wanted list."
Something she said must have shattered the wonder. "You're coming with me, Max. Even if I have to drag you out myself." He tossed the bag he was holding aside and moved to close the gap between them.
The faint embers of hope that flared suddenly were harder to stomp out but after 5 excruciating years of Manticore, it had become second nature for her. "Sorry, 494, but my orders are different," she called out, purposely using his designation, knowing that would grate more on his nerves than a quick slap to the face. The pain in his features was like a hot blade in her gut as he realized that she was not the Max he remembered. He was right, she wasn't.
She blurred towards him and he grabbed her arm and tossed her backwards. Preferably to knock her out in the process so he could made his way out with her unconscious self. Max almost smiled, her first in many years as she flipped, landed, and jumped upwards again. He pushed her leg away as she kicked him and she flew across the room to land noisily against a file cabinet.
"You're as terrible as I remembered," she made a show of rearranging her clothes as she stood. To pull this off she had to time this to the last second. "Does that mean you still never believe in backup?"
"That was you, I'm all for backup." He straightened up and for one second there was a different glint lighting her eyes. Something that looked suspiciously like relief but it was gone as quickly as it appeared when she laughed and smirked.
"Getting paranoid in your old age, 494?"
"Just because Manticore has rebranded itself as a philanthropist and is now the toast of town doesn't mean I trust them enough to come in solo. Maxie, please. Come with me."
"I can't do that." She smiled, a soft sad smile as her hand blurred and she drew out a black Glock. The smile was tinged with regret as she pulled the trigger and he fell to his knees, blood oozing out of his shoulder.
His open-eyed look of pure shock before it turned to horror would haunt her to her death but he didn't even tried to keep their distance. His blood trailed messily on the floor as he struggled to get back on his feet but he was bleeding out too fast. She stood silently, her face a frozen front as he lost his fight to stay conscious and he crumpled in a heap, his eyes fluttering close.
She then knelt next to him, pulled something from the inside of her suit and she used it to push against his bubbling wound. A soft gasp flittered through his immobile lips but she kept the pressure, feeling his warm blood coating her cold fingers. Her jaws hardened, her face was impassive, but one lone tear slid down her cheek. "Hate me… Forget me… You have to."
Seconds later, she could hear the telltale sign of running boots, the cautious step of an X-series so she stood, tossed the blood soaked cloth into a bag, zipped it, and left.
She didn't let herself think during the ride back. The full day it took to take them back to their destination, she was a statue; unmoving, unthinking. The minute she arrived on base, she made a bee-line towards the Director's office.
"Fix her." She tossed the bag onto the woman's table but the Director just lifted her head and gave her a silent stare.
"Let me remind you of something. Your orders, 452, were to bring in 494 alive, not drops of what I assume is his blood in a bag."
"And let me remind you something. The only reason I haven't broken out of here," she spat out the last word, "is because of her and the fact that you'd go after him the second I'm out. How convenient is it that suddenly she's ill and you proclaim the cure can only come from his blood. So his blood is the only thing you're going to get."
"Careful, 452. Your mutiny won't get you anywhere. After all, I thought you'd want him here. Introduce him to a daughter he doesn't even know he has, a little family reunion under Manticore's big roof."
"Stop." Her voice was soft but there was steel lacing each syllable.
"Very well," the Director spoke after a full minute of silence. "The guard will inform you of the time for the mission debriefing."
Without another word she walked out of the room and kept on marching blindly until she came to a halt in front of a window. It took her a couple of seconds to realize that she was looking down on to the courtyard. Young Xs were moving about, running drill. The world's perception of Manticore may have changed but behind its high wall, Manticore still remained the same.
She zoomed in to one of them, a small girl with short dark hair who suddenly turned towards her. The girl was frowning as she gestured at another young boy while their handler was keeping a very close eye at their interaction. She imagined the young girl's eyes would glaze in concentration right now, the same green eyes that peered up at her as she cradled the small bundle all those years ago. Before the guards came in and wrestled the baby away from her.
She didn't remember ever having a particularly easy life, fear was a constant companion back even when she learned to take her first step but the terror she felt as she stared at the faraway form of her daughter eclipsed everything she ever experienced. The fear of not able to tear the girl away from Manticore's clutches. The fear that her daughter will never know of a world outside of Manticore.
The need to get her out kept on burning, a hot pulsating desire that she hoards greedily but it was only a far-fetched dream at the moment. Her dark eyes hardened and she purposely turned her back away from the window, walking briskly back to her cell.
Night was approaching and she shuddered inwardly at the thought of sleep. Every single night she will be plagued by the same dream. It had been five years but the dream was always the same.
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So guys, what do you think? :)