Rating: G

Disclaimer: Dark Angel remains the property of James Cameron & Chick Eglee.

A Father's Love

The night was wearing down to that thin point where all of the senses are heightened to the point of pain, and Donald Lydecker was already feeling far too much. His back and bottom ached from sitting in an uncomfortable folding chair, the back of which was digging incessantly in between his vertebrae. Even so, he couldn't seem to put an end to this vigil. Memories of his lost wife and of the man he had once been set him as firmly to that uncomfortable chair was if he were shackled to it.

He had watched four rounds of x-series fail. He had stood by while the tiny, infant X-2s seized in their cribs and it hadn't touched him through the haze of depression and binge drinking he'd submersed himself in. Manticore had been ready to go down the tubes before one last ditch effort had produced the X-5 series. These kids were a whole need breed, a step above humanity, and Lydecker had selfishly wanted to be one of them. But more than that, he wanted back a piece of the past.

No one in the world could have convinced him that it was impossible to resurrect his dead wife. As far as he was concerned, he'd been given the power of God, and he intended to use it. This little, shivering girl wasn't quite the woman he'd lost long ago, but she had a familiar gleam that eased his heart. As the only living piece of the one person he'd loved most in the world, she was as close as he would ever get to a real daughter.

Max rolled over on her cot and it creaked under her weight. Her eyes were pinched shut and he could see them moving back and forth under her eyelids. She was dreaming.

Reaching forward, he settled a firm hand on her head and felt the heat radiating out from her small body. The doctors weren't sure what was causing her to run a fever; all of their efforts to bring down her core temperature had failed miserably. Their only hope was to keep her hydrated, keep her cool, and hope that it would break. Lydecker had been at her beside now for several hours

She groaned, her dark eyes flashing open for a brief moment. They were wild and dilated. She was delirious. Her hands and feet were loosely bound to the bed to keep her from hurting both herself and the doctors.

They knew the problem rested somewhere in her immune system. That had been a problem in all of their early designs. Babies develop their own immune system, borrowing their mothers only for a short time via breast milk. But the x-series infants had no mothers and thus no early immune defenses. Many of them died from diseases the doctors brought into the facility without realizing it.

So, Manticore engineered an immune system for them, feeling that it would further enhance their perfection. It took years to code the antigens. They borrowed from every living body they could find, including themselves. And when the epoch battle was complete, they had coded an immune system as strong as the children destined to receive it.

The first problems they encountered were severe allergies. Their bodies were so ramped up, their systems so aggressive, that they responded to things the doctors hadn't intended. Over the course of the project, they'd managed to iron most of the problems out. But Lydecker knew that other problems were undoubtedly on the horizon. He hoped that Max had not encountered one.

He sighed and brushed his fingers over her short, military cut hair. She would be beautiful like her mother when it grew out to frame her heart-shaped face. He wanted the chance to see her grow into a strong woman, an intelligent and skilled solider. He wanted to push her to her greatest potential. Despite himself, deep down inside, he wanted to be a father to her.

So he continued to sit, waiting for her fever to break. She probably wouldn't know how long he'd remained at her side. But he couldn't leave her and risk the chance that in his absence someone would take her from the infirmary. Manticore was military and these children were weapons, not people. If Max were any other X-5, there would be nothing left but body parts and lab tests for Lydecker to sit over. Any other child, and she would have been studied, taken apart, and dissected to figure out what had gone wrong.

But Max was no ordinary X-5. She was special. And she held a unique place in Lydecker's heart.

He leaned forward so that his elbows were propped on his knees. A pair of glasses sat on his nose, and his vision was going in and out of focus from lack of sleep and stress. Balancing his devotion to his wife's memory, his interest in this girl, and his military career wasn't easy. He'd thought, in fact, that his career was over until he'd gotten the call to come to Wyoming.

To hell with 'thought'…it was over.

But things had changed. He'd kicked the habit, was back in uniform, and was heading a program that looked more and more every day like it had the potential to change the world. All in all, things were looking up. Everything, that is, except this bump in the road – this fever.

He wouldn't let her die. Willing her his strength, he leaned back again, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

By morning, the fever had broke, and Lydecker felt a surge of emotion for this girl, felt for a flash of a second the relief of a father like an echo from a time when he'd been a different man.