A/N: Ben 'fic; my interpretation of him . . . overlaps heavily with Darkness Wide Awake and is part of that general story arc. Serves loosely as a prequel to that story, and much background, etc.

Inspired loosely by the Inimitable Pooh_Bah's story If Scheherazade, which I consider to be one of the best Ben fanfics ever written. Apologies to her for any similarities in style, etc, that this story may have. Set between Female Trouble, and Pollo Loco. Prefaces my story Darkness Wide Awake and fills in some general gaps there.

Warnings on the story: R for implied sex, language, violence, mental trauma, and rapidly shifting verb-tense and subject pronouns, etc, and other things that your mother should have warned you about.

Broken Hallelujah

prologue - slow dying flower

"Do you think there are some things that are . . . unforgivable?"

"God's forgiveness has no limits."

"That's big of him."

"He forgives things that you or I may not be able to forgive - in others, and in ourselves. . . "

You can still feel his hands on you now, eleven years later, with the same sharp acuity of sense that you feel Manticore's surgical blades on your stomach and Jondy's pistol against your neck, and you don't think it'll ever leave you.

Maybe it'll fade in time, if you wait another eleven years, into a distant bruise, and you'll be left with nothing but a slight ache instead of the insistently nagging pain that it is right now. You doubt it, though, and something tells you you'd miss it if it did.

You think, privately, that they were right; what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger. You're not quite sure what you mean by that, though, who are the 'they'? Zack? Manticore?

But you lived through Manticore, didn't you? You lived, like Jack and Eva didn't, so you guess you must be stronger than them but maybe you would have been better off dead on the operating table, because you certainly weren't strong enough for the Real World, and you don't think you'll ever be. (You say it with the capitals, like you always did when you were young. Real World. Outside. Blue Lady - you had to set it apart from where you were at the time, so it made sense then, but even now, you still pronounce it with the capitals. You don't think you'll ever really be a part of this 'Real World'.)

Zack used to say that Manticore made one mistake; they made us too strong, and you always privately disagreed, although you never voiced your dissent. It was enough that Zack let you see the others; you know he's done his best to keep you apart from the others, and you can't blame him for it. Zack's brilliant, after all, just like you and Krit and Jondy and Syl and all your brothers and sisters, because they made you that way, and he can spot your madness and you think maybe he knew about it all those years ago before you ever decided to run.

You wonder whether the others feel like you do. You know Scout does, and you think Syl does, a little. You don't know about Brin and the others - Brin always said that she'd die rather than go back, but look what happened to her. Dead on the Psy Ops tables -

Tinga was angry at you when you said it that way, but she knew you were right and she couldn't hide it. The Brin who laughed at bad sci-fi movies and was best friends with Tinga and was in love with roses and liked to eat ham sandwiches with mustard and pickles and jalapenos - that Brin is dead - dead in the only way that matters, and nothing will change that, not Zane's desperate plea to go in after her or Lamar's cynical calm when he asked Zack if we should run.

You're half-curious why you even bothered to flee Manticore, anyway. Zack's turned all of you into semi-soldiers, and you run when he tells you to. Jump, Zack says, and you jump, because you're a good soldier, and you always obey your CO. He said he'd wanted us to run because it was better than Manticore, and it almost is, but you can't help missing what it was like then, although you never say it aloud.

You miss the direction, really, the easiness of it all. You can see that in every fiber of the others' bodies, but nobody ever says it aloud. Maybe they don't miss it, then? Maybe you're imagining it - maybe. Maybe Zane's really happy with his endless list of girlfriends that he says he'll marry, and he'll settle down with one of them someday, and maybe Syl will have some kids with Krit some day, and maybe Brin will come back from the dead and maybe Tinga will be able to stay with Case and grow old with her Charlie.

Or maybe Zane'll get killed someday because he'll go back for a girl that isn't worth it, although he'll think she will be, and maybe Syl will never stop running from Krit because she loves him too much to hurt him, and maybe Brin will hunt each of us down because she knows us better than anyone else, and maybe Tinga will end up dead and Case sliced open on a dissection table to see what his half-breed genes have done to him.

You suspect the latter is more true than the former.

But maybe it's worth it, this life in the outside world. You like to think that it was worth it - if not for you - at least for your siblings. And that's what matters, really.