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A/N: Yet another response to a prompt from the Raising Hell site. This one is prompt #16: Three people can keep a secret if two of them are dead. I am not 100 happy with this, so let me know what you think.

I play fast and loose with canon and it could be seen as alternate. Should probably be seen as alternate. Sigh, if I listed everything you had to ignore the notes would be longer than the story itself. I hope it is obvious anyway.

In my defense I would just like to say that this immediately sprung to mind as soon as I saw the prompt in my email account. Just screamed out at me.

Secrets

Renfro had known. Then again how could she not have, seeing as it had been her idea in the first place. Not that Alec had known that at the time. The knowledge of what she had done to him had been lost along with everything else that made him more than a soldier after the Berrisford disaster.

He must have agreed in the beginning of course. Manticore had learned early on that some things even psy-ops couldn't remove without the consent of the patient in question.

For the life of him, Alec couldn't quite put his finger on what his reasonings must have been. After the way his life had been up until that point, you would have thought that he would have fought tooth and nail to not be taken back. Then again maybe he had welcomed the thought of a regulated life, one in which the questions were answered for him, and he wasn't required to make decisions of his own. That hadn't stopped him from bringing some of the outside world into the hallowed halls of Manticore, organising all his needs with the guards.

Biggs had known. Had helped him, in the beginning at least. Aided him when he couldn't quite remember the rules. Helped him find his place again, become one of the best.

And then Berrisford happened, one giant fuck-up after another. He should have known he would fail his solo mission. After all, he was defective in the first place. Agreed, Manticore had fixed him, but when it came down to it, something had been seriously wrong with him before they had.

Of course he had failed, failed spectacularly, letting his emotions rule his actions and paying a very high price for it. Rachel had died, or so he had at least thought at the time, and he had been thrown back into psych.

It had been touch and go for a while. Never being sure if Renfro would decide that it was just too much of a waste of time getting him back on his feet. Maybe deciding she could use the resources better elsewhere. In the end however his use outweighed the liability having him around would do.

One day he had been dragged out of solitary and into her office. She had offered him some water and then laid out his options. He would forget everything, become a totally new person. With his agreement she would make sure psy-ops left nothing of the original behind this time. And that was what he wanted, wasn't it? To be fixed. To not make the same mistakes he had done. Kill innocent people, like he had before. Like he had with Rachel.

It made so much sense at the time. And in the end it hadn't been that hard.

He had still been himself, for a given value thereof, when they added a thin tattooed line to the end of his barcode. A single line that turned X5-493 into X5-494.

Renfro had known. It had been her idea. Biggs had known, because Renfro had told him. And Alec had known once the memories of his time with the Berrisfords came back to him and all that had gone before. Now two of the three were dead.

As he stared into the depths of his glass, Alec reflected that it was possible for three people to keep a secret. As long as two of them were dead.