Chloe King has a Destiny
Disclaimer: Not mine. Not only did I steal from the show, but I think I'm also stealing some ideas from fanfics I've read…
Summary: Chloe King died on her 16th birthday. But it was also the day her life really began. Discovering she was different, not human, shifted her reality on its head and left her dizzy with confusion, and then there were the two boys who wanted to be part of her new life.
Chapter 1
Three months earlier…
Valentina, the leader of the San Francisco Pride and Jasmine's mother, entered the living room of her luxury high-rise apartment in downtown San Francisco on a chilly February evening, introducing herself to Chloe. She apologized for everything Chloe has been through, and told her to come with her to talk. "I just wish we were able to find you sooner. But you were born in such dark times. So many Mai were scattered and lost."
Chloe wondered at the Mai who'd come before her. Descended from the Egyptian goddess Bastet. Part human, part god, hunted for centuries for a reason Chloe was still wholly in the dark about. "Why do they want to kill me? Us?" Chloe asked with both fear and determination in her voice.
"Ignorance. Fear. A feud that goes back thousands of years. The mistaken belief that Mai are a danger to the human race," Valentina explained, not really explaining at all.
"We've been waiting for you for a very long time," Valentina said, her certainty that Chloe was the long awaited Uniter undeniable. "Nine lives to live..."
"Nine lives to endure," Chloe recited with some morbid humor. "It kind of sticks with ya."
"Nine lives to accomplish much, but each more complicated than the last and each death more painful than the one before. I'm sorry Chloe, but your life is no longer your own," Valentina said with the wisdom of centuries in her voice. "This is all our fight Chloe, you might have eight lives left, but each one is more precious than all of ours combined."
"I don't know if I can be what you want me to be," Chloe said, unsure of her role. "I know I kinda died and came back, but maybe I wasn't really dead, I mean Mai heal fast," Chloe said desperately, her voice rising in a squeak. "Maybe I'm just super speedy… with the healing."
"I've never been more sure of anything than I am that you are the Uniter. Chloe, we knew you'd been born. We just didn't know who or where you were. We've been looking."
"How?" Chloe asked, this being the first she'd heard of it.
"The curse was lifted," Valentina said simply.
"The curse? The thing about Mai and humans not being able to kiss or… never mind. Kissing is enough," Chloe blushed.
"Yes," the Mai leader confirmed with a smile, suddenly reminded that while Chloe was the Uniter, she was also a teenager girl. "The curse that made intimacy between humans and Mai impossible was lifted when you were born. You who are meant to unite our race and lift us from these dark times."
"But Alek and Jasmine said…"
"We kept it a secret, the Mai elders and leaders. If too many people knew then the Order might find out you'd been born and hunt for you more actively than they had been."
"But…"
"You kissed a boy and he died," the Mai leader said, revealing her knowledge of events even in her absence. "You thought it was your fault. It was the Order, Chloe, we checked with the medical examiner. He was poisoned. The Order killed that boy, not you. No human will die because of an accidental contact with Mai anymore. Because of you. You are the Uniter, Chloe."
==-Nine Lives-==
Present day…
Chloe woke up in the Train Museum to find three people standing over her, staring at her with astonished awe. She tensed, feeling a deep pain radiating from her chest outward making her whole body ache and every breath torture. She didn't sense any danger from them, and they looked vaguely familiar. "Are you…"
"Mai. We are Mai. Your guards," one of them, a tall man with shoulder length dark hair, golden skin and dark almond shaped eyes said, his voice soothing.
"What… happened?" she asked sitting up slowly.
"You died." The words of the female Mai guard fell heavily, like rocks, her dark hair was pulled back in a ponytail, her clothes chosen for function over fashion.
"I kinda thought that," Chloe rasped, wrapping an arm around her chest as her memories rushed back.
Earlier that night…
Chloe had come to the Train Museum alone to find her father, but instead she'd found several people, she had to assume they were members of the Order, waiting for her. They'd fought and she'd won, but it had been a tough fight and left Chloe flustered. How had they known about the books she'd written with her father before he'd disappeared? Why lay a trap if they knew who she was? Why not just come after her directly?
She'd been descending the staircase to leave when a vaguely familiar pale woman with red hair had stepped out and shot her three times. The woman had known her name. Known that Chloe might come back to life.
Chloe had felt each impact, felt herself falling, growing colder, dying. Even knowing she would come back, she'd pictured her loved ones in her mind. Her mom and dad. Amy and Paul. Alek and Brian. She'd faced her regrets, her doubts, her fears and finally her own emotions and her course had become clear as her life drained out of her in a pool of dark red blood.
Present day…
"Are you still in pain? Hurt? We don't know actually how much you heal…" the woman said, curious but cautious.
"I heal completely, but it takes awhile. A few hours," Chloe recalled from her fall from Coit Tower.
"Do you need to see the Mai healers?"
"No. I'm fine, I think. What happened to the…?"
Chloe's mind settled on two undeniable facts. The Order knew who she was, and they were coming after her.
"The members of the Order who attacked you are dead. They knew who you were and would have kept coming after you. We need to find all of them and eliminate the threat," the third guard stated plainly, his hair was died electric blue, has pale skin stretched over a muscled physique.
Chloe gasped, struggling to stand up, feeling at a disadvantage sitting on the floor as they towered over her. "I don't want that. The killing… it's enough. It needs to end." She wanted to ask about the red-headed woman, but didn't not really want to know if another person, a person she could put a face to, was dead, because of her.
"They will keep trying to kill you, they will kill you until you don't have any more lives," he said in disbelief, narrowing his blue eyes which were set in a wide face. He was huge, tall with broad shoulders and mounds of muscles: a warrior through and through.
"Yes," Chloe agreed simply, causing all three guards to gape at her. "That is my destiny as the Uniter. To live and die. To learn and bring peace."
"To the Mai," the beefy guard said sternly.
"To all the races, including humans," Chloe said, her voice ringing with certainty. The Mai guards shared a cautious, doubting look, but didn't try to correct her.
Previously…
Jasmine looked at Chloe, her dark eyes serious, pained. "Mai have been hunted and killed for thousands of years. Sometimes it's hard not to hate the ones who hate you."
==-Nine Lives-==
Present day…
Chloe returned home, slipping up the stairs silently, not ready to face her mother. Her Mai guards were waiting outside, but they wouldn't wait long.
After being shot by the red-headed woman, who had used Chloe's long missing father to lure her in, Chloe knew she couldn't ignore the danger anymore and go about her life like there wasn't a whole group of people dedicated to killing her as many times as it took for her to stay dead. The Order was bad enough, and then there were the other races, other god/human hybrids who had a long and unhappy history with the Mai.
They'd gone after Paul, they'd beaten Alek bloody, Jasmine had been stabbed. It wasn't just Chloe in danger, it was everyone around her, and her actions, her inaction was putting them all in continual danger.
Packing a army green duffle bag quickly, Chloe grabbed her laptop and mp3 player and with one last mournful look around her room, she went downstairs. She was leaving. Not forever, but for long enough to adjust her mind to what her life was going to be from now on. Her life as a Mai. Her lives as the Uniter. Nine lives to live, two down, seven to go.
If she believed she was the Uniter, and she did, she was destined to live and die seven more times. Each more painful than the last. She could accept that. As long as the people she loved were safe. As long as her destiny didn't mean their deaths.
"Mom? Are you home?" she called out. Her mother appeared from the den and Chloe forced back her tears. "Mom, we need to talk." Her mother had asked her not to lie before, knowing that something was up with Chloe after her 16th birthday, but Chloe had maintained the lie, kept her mother in the dark. Now was the time for the truth.
Previously…
"Since your birthday, you've been acting like a very different person," Meredith said in exasperated suspicion.
"It's called growing up. Really, mom, no drugs, I promise."
Present day…
Ten minutes later Meredith was staring at Chloe as if she might be in need of a psychiatrist. "It's all true, look," Chloe insisted, extending her claws. Meredith jumped back in fright, then slumped down on the couch as the truth sank in.
"I know this is a lot, and I know this isn't what you signed up for when you adopted me, but I love you and I hope you can accept me for who I really am, but-"
"Of course I love you, and I can… accept this, I just need a minute," Meredith insisted.
"You can have more than a minute. I have to go."
"At this time of night? I don't think so," Meredith countered in her mom voice. "We need to talk and I-"
"I can't stay, Mom. Have you been listening? I'm in danger. You're in danger as long as I'm here. I have to go and figure some of this out. Just for a few weeks, I need some time…"
"No, Chloe," Meredith said, grabbing Chloe's hand in a hard grip.
Chloe burst to her feet, blond curls flying. She pulled open her jacket revealing her bloody and torn shirt. "I died tonight, Mom. I died. I was shot three times by an assassin. It wasn't the first time I died either. I'm not just Mai, I'm special. I'm… I have a destiny. And you don't have to like it, I don't like it, but it's true. And I have to leave. For a few weeks," Chloe cried. "I wanted to tell you. I'll be OK, and I'll come back. This isn't goodbye."
Previously…
"What would you do if I just didn't come home one day?" Chloe asked, sitting at the kitchen island after coming in late from meeting Valentina for the first time.
Meredith rounded on her in shock. "Oh my God, Chloe. Why would you even ask me that? That has to be a mother's worst nightmare."
Present day…
Chloe listened as Meredith begged her not to go, not to leave, saying that they could protect Chloe at home.
"I've already lost two lives Mom." Chloe said gently. "One on my 16th birthday and one tonight. I have to go. I need to come to grips with what my life is now and I need to be somewhere safe to do that," Chloe paused, looking at her mother, both their faces contorted with grief. "And that is not here."
"This is your home," Meredith insisted.
"I love you Mom, and I'm not leaving forever, I just need awhile. I'll be in touch," Chloe said, her words trembling with emotion, tears filling her eyes again.
Meredith watched as Chloe moved towards the door. "Chloe, wait!"
"Mom, I can't, this is too hard, please…."
"I have something to show you. Something you should know," Meredith insisted. "Let me show you, then you can go if you need to." Chloe waited impatiently as her mom went upstairs.
Returning, Meredith showed Chloe her adoption papers and the article about the girl found alive in the rubble of a building, where all the other residents were killed in an unexplained fire."I died before," Chloe said blankly.
"I think your father knew who… what you are. I think he tried to hide you from whoever wants to hurt you," Meredith said, the words hollow as if saying them after hiding the truth for so long was painful.
"We moved Chloe, after he brought you home. We moved and changed our names. I never knew why, but he insisted, and I was scared enough to agree, after he left I wondered. But I'd lost my chance to ask."
"What was our name?"
"Sullivan. I had dinner last night with someone who knew your father. I didn't realize it at the time, but after dinner I remembered seeing Whitley with your father once before we moved."
Chloe grabbed her mother's shoulders firmly. "Stay away from him Mom, I don't know who all the members of the Order are, but you can't be too careful."
"The Order?" Meredith questioned, her voice rising with emotion.
"It's… the group who want to kill me," Chloe said with a grimace as if she were telling her mom she'd broken a favorite lamp, not that an ancient group of assassins were trying to kill her. "Who did you have dinner with… Whitley who?"
"Rezza. Whitley Rezza."
Previously…
While Chloe had coffee with Brian for the first time they'd exchanged numbers. "OK," Chloe said with a smile, holding her cell phone in her hand. "Got it," she said, punching in his number. "Brian…"
"Rezza. Nice to meet you Chloe King."
==-Nine Lives-==
Present day…
Chloe left her house with tears in her eyes and a dark suspicion clouding her mind. Whitley Rezza was Brian's father. Whitley had sought out her mother, had known Chloe's father. And the woman who had killed Chloe earlier that night, Chloe knew now where she had seen the woman before. At the fundraiser Brian had taken her to. There was a connection between Brian and the woman who had shot Chloe in cold blood.
Driving her new SUV over to Valentina's penthouse, Chloe tried to gather her emotions. Parking on the street, she checked that her jacket was all the way buttoned, covering the evidence of her latest death. She should have changed her shirt, but she'd been in a hurry. She wanted to just tell Valentina what had happened then get out of town. She'd have to lose her Mai guards, but she knew the city well and thought she could do it. Her Mai guards had followed to their leader's home and parked on the street farther down.
Taking the elevator upstairs, Chloe steeled her nerves to face Alek, who was a more tumultuous adversary currently than even the awe inspiring Valentina. As soon as Chloe exited the elevator on the 18th floor she knew something was wrong.
Her empathy still didn't seem to work on Mai, but there was a dark vibe that was impossible to ignore. Rushing to the door she pushed it open. Bursting into what Chloe had always thought was a safe place, she found chaos.
Alek was rising to his feet over an unconscious Zane, both battered and bruised. Jasmine and Valentina were on the floor not moving, Jasmine bleeding from a stomach wound. "Alek…" Chloe cried out, rushing to him, eyes racing over him, cataloguing his injuries.
Alek looked at her, his expression tortured. "Get some rope," he croaked.
"What… Where is the rope?" Chloe asked trying to come to grips with current events.
"The hall closet."
Chloe did as he asked and they tied Zane's hands behind him then hog tied his feet as well. Chloe moved to Jasmine, putting pressure on her stomach wound, earning a whimper of pain. Alek checked Valentina as he called for help.
Within minutes the apartment was swarming with Mai. Alek and Chloe were pushed aside as a tall stocky blonde man took charge. Chloe stayed close to Alek's side, cupping her hands around his arm and tugging him to one of the couches. "Let me clean you up," she said softly.
Alek didn't reply his dark gaze taking in everything around him. Chloe squeezed his arm, then left him to get a warm, wet wash cloth.
An hour later, it was determined that Jasmine would recover with the Mai healers' help, but Valentina needed to be taken to a hospital. They had transfused her blood in the apartment in an effort to purge the unknown poison from her system, but she remained unconscious and needed round the clock care. The Mai healers weren't able to run the kind of tests that that hospitals had access to. "Where are you taking her?" Alek demanded.
"SF General," one of the Mai healers replied. "I'm a doctor there, I can keep charge of her care."
"I'm going with you," Alek demanded.
"Not until you tell us exactly what happened here," the blonde Mai in charge said harshly.
"I don't know what happened, Curt," Alek spit out. "I came home to find Valentina on the ground and Jasmine bleeding to death. Zane was here, he as good as admitted he'd done it. We fought, I won. Feel free to question him when he wakes up since I went through pains not to kill him. But I am going with Valentina, now," he said aggressively, his tone brokering no argument. His gaze landed on Chloe. "Chloe… will you stay with Jasmine?"
"I'll stay," Chloe agreed, seeing that Alek was at the end of his rope, temporarily abandoning her plans to flee the city for awhile.
Alek nodded choppily. "Call me if… if anything changes." He moved towards her, standing close to her. Chloe looked up at him, her eyes wounded. The night's events had left her emotionally shattered, as well as down another life, not that she'd shared that fact with Alek yet. He wrapped his arms around her and Chloe felt her heart stutter. She hesitated a moment then hugged him back. Her stomach fluttered then flipped over as he spoke in her ear, his lips brushing the sensitive flesh. "Stay here with Jasmine, if anything happens, call me. Be careful who you trust," he said so softly that only she could hear him then he was gone, leaving her standing alone in a room full of Mai that she didn't know and wasn't sure she could trust.
==-Nine Lives-==
Chloe sat with Jasmine in the dark haired girl's bedroom, her relief swelling as she focused on the sound of her friend's heartbeat, which was steady and strong. A little over an hour later, Jasmine's eyes fluttered open. "Chloe?" she rasped.
"I'm here, you're OK," Chloe reassured.
"Zane…" the usually strong and stoic Mai said weakly.
"We got him. Alek got him," Chloe said, hoping to ease her new friend's fears.
"My mom?" Jasmine asked weakly.
Chloe's mouth tightened and her eyes filled with tears. Jasmine gasped, expecting the worst. "She's alive… but unconscious. They took her to the hospital."
Jasmine started to cry silent tears, Chloe sitting quietly by her side, holding her hand. Jasmine's eyes grew heavy but she squeezed Chloe's hand hard. "Can you go… see how she is? I need… to know," the dark haired girl said.
"OK, of course," Chloe agreed.
Leaving Jasmine's room, Chloe found the main room still crowded with Mai.
Chloe listened to the terse conversation for a few minutes then walked towards the door. "Where do you think you're going?" a loud voice rang out.
Chloe turned to see that the conversation had stopped and everyone was staring at her. "I'm going to see Valentina, Jasmine asked-"
"You're not going anywhere," Curt said bossily.
"I am. I'm going to check on Valentina for her daughter," Chloe said slowly, trying to keep her tone neutral.
"You're the Uniter, you have to be protected, and since we can't trust you to do what's best for yourself, we will do what's best for you," Curt said, nodding to two other Mai who moved to flank Chloe.
Previously…
Jasmine looked at Chloe with worried eyes. Chloe had recently escaped a close call, another attempt on her life, this time by two members of the Mai Pride from Brazil. They'd been disappointed with Chloe as the Uniter and had wanted to kill her to see if she'd come back to life, as proof she really was the Uniter.
"Chloe, you have to understand. Whoever controls the Uniter controls the fate of the Mai."
Chloe's expression was determined. "No one controls me."
Present day…
"You can't tell me what to do," Chloe said, her voice trembling lightly with anger and fear.
"I can and I am," Curt said. "Take her to the safe house. Make sure she stays put." Chloe gasped as the two Mai on either side of her grabbed her arms and pulled her towards the door.
==-Nine Lives-==
Chloe looked around the room she was in. It was large, comfortable, well decorated, and a prison. Locked in a gilded cage, she thought to herself. She was under guard in another high rise luxury condo with views of the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatrez.
Valentina had mentioned the prospect of needing to take Chloe away and hide her, but Chloe had never really considered it a possibility. She was free. Free to make her own choices. With that thought in mind, Chloe opened all the curtains and blinds and saw a ledge below the window.
Using her claws, she cut a section of the window before easing herself out the hole she'd made. Outside it was windy, and with the narrow ledge her only support Chloe wondered if she'd just made a fatal error, 20 stories above ground. Even a cat couldn't fall endlessly and expect to land, unhurt, on its feet. Catching sight of the solid wall outcropping just a few feet away, Chloe took a deep breath and made her way to it. Digging her claws into the concrete building façade, she climbed up to the top of the building, four floors up, 60 long feet to freedom.
Previously…
Chloe chased an unknown figure dressed in black across her neighbor's rooftops, ending up on the ledge of the neighborhood market a few blocks from her house. She'd looked around, trying to find the person who'd been watching her, but as she heard a noise behind her and spun around she'd lost her footing.
Alek grabbed her wrist and pulled her down to safety, she'd tumbled into his arms, pushing away from him quickly. "Alek… I…"
"I could have killed you," he said, his eyes sincere. "Do you really want to die again?" He'd stepped closer to her, forcing her to tilt her head back to continue to hold his gaze. "Don't be so careless with your lives."
That was the first time Chloe had realized that the Mai, Alek in particular, were watching over her.
Present day…
After ripping open the locked door access to the stairwell, Chloe ran down the stairs to the street level at full Mai speed, slipping into the first alley she came to.
Sticking to the shadows and rooftops as she made her way back to Valentina's and where she'd parked her new car. Stopping in an alley just over 15 feet from her car, Chloe looked around warily for Mai and members of the Order, considering both to be a danger to her currently.
Darting out of the alley, Chloe unlocked her car and slipped inside her SUV as quickly as possible. Checking to make sure her bag was still in the backseat, she started the engine and headed towards the Golden Gate Bridge, but after only a few blocks she turned the car around and drove to the hospital where Valentina was being kept.
==-Nine Lives-==
At SF General, Chloe slipped past the human and Mai security by dressing as a candy stripper and walking behind groups of nurses and hospital staff and visitors. Listening for the sound of Alek's heartbeat, and following the faint scent of him, Chloe made her way to Valentina's room. She didn't question how she knew it was his heartbeat, ever since the day he'd trained her to control her super-hearing by blocking out everything but his heartbeat, she'd been able to isolate it if she was within a few hundred yards of him.
Previously…
Alek came up behind Chloe in the school hallway when she'd been listening in with her Mai-hearing on the gossip. "Turn around." She'd spun around, dropping her books, to find Alek standing directly behind her. "Having fun?" he'd asked, no smile on his handsome angular face.
"I swear I'm going to tie a bell around your neck," Chloe said, her heart racing. Alek bent down to help her pick up her books. "Stop sneaking up on me."
Alek had followed her to her locker, a habit he'd taken up since she'd transitioned to being Mai. "The hearing is there to alert you to danger," he said dryly.
"Meaning you?" she'd said defensively, still uncomfortable with his attention. Alek had an intensity that made her nerves flutter uncontrollably. She didn't wait for his response. "I wouldn't know, it's just noise, I can't really control it," she said with a hint of frustration.
"We'll have to work on that. And no, not me. Killers, executioners, the assorted non-human predator. You're not safe just because you stopped one man," Alek said with barely restrained intensity, referring the Valentina's killing of the Rogue Mai who had hunted Chloe at the behest of the Order, but only after the Rogue had killed Chloe before she'd even known she was Mai. "You have to learn to control your gifts, it might be the difference between life and for you… losing another."
"Is this your long winded, slightly frightening, way of saying I have training again tonight?" Chloe said in dissatisfaction.
Later, Alek took her to the Embarcadero and the newly opened farmer's market, an area teaming with people and sounds. "Close your eyes," he'd commanded, earning a rebellious look. "Just do what I tell you."
"Highly suspicious," she'd countered, making him smirk at her.
"Don't be." He'd told her to focus, but the cacophony of sounds had been too much. Patiently encouraging her to focus on her own breathing, the sounds had started to fall away. He'd said that only he and she mattered, then he'd had her focus in on particular sounds: the clock, then a woman haggling with a vendor, and finally his heartbeat.
The look they'd shared when she'd succeeded had set a hundred butterflies loose in her stomach, making her feel closer to him than she ever had and more uncertain about her feelings for him than ever before.
"Did that work?"
"Yeah," she said, her mind stumbling to understand how Alek could be so different from one moment to the next. "Um, it, uh, it worked, thanks," she'd said, not able to hold his gaze. His eyes held a warmth and a seriousness that she wasn't prepared for.
Present day…
The white hospital room was silent except for the steady beeping of the heart monitor. Alek sat silently his head hanging low, hands folded. "How is she?" Chloe asked softly. Alek didn't bother to answer or turn his head to look at her. "Alek? I'm so sorry," she said. "Sorry for everything. All this started because of me. If I'd-"
"This isn't your fault," Alek said crisply, none of the warmth she'd come to expect from him when they were alone showing. "You're not a burden, you're the Uniter. The Order have been killing us for centuries. This didn't start because of you," Alek said with burning intensity. "My parents… my whole fam-" he cut off his face creasing with confusion.
"Alek? Did something happen? Something else I mean?"
"You mean more than finding out I never had a chance with you and Valentina and Jasmine almost being killed by my… by Zane?" Alek said with sharp accusation.
Chloe looked down, hurt and regret thickening her throat. "I'm sor-"
"Don't say it. I never want to talk about it again. It's better that I know now," he cut her off.
"Alek, I don't think you understood what-"
"No, I said I didn't want to talk about it."
Chloe swallowed hard, fighting back the words she wanted to say, the explanation she wanted to give. It wasn't as bad as Alek thought, but Chloe knew that her indecisiveness between Alek and Brian had hurt him. She had to own that. She was drawn to both boys. One was easy, the other was not. One wanted her help, the other wanted to protect her. Both apparently wanted her love. They knew what they each wanted from her, but Chloe didn't know what she wanted.
And now she knew Brian's father was connected to hers somehow, maybe even was in the Order. She wanted to deny that their friendship had been anything other than genuine, but she had to be cautious. She had to protect herself, her friends and family. She had to be the Uniter. It wasn't a choice, and with that came responsibility.
Alek relayed that Valentina was in a coma, the drug Zane had given her shutting down her system, but the doctors thought they had flushed the worst of it out, and now they just had to wait.
"I'm glad she's alive, I hope… I hope she recovers fully," Chloe said, turning to leave, but Alek moved quickly and stopped her with a hand circling her arm.
"Where are you going?" he demanded. Chloe stared up at him blankly. "That sounded like a goodbye. Where are you going?"
"I'm leaving San Francisco for awhile," she said.
"Did Curt order that?" Alek questioned, dark eyes drilling into hers. Chloe looked down and he shook her lightly, his hands curled in unbreakable holds on her shoulders "Answer me."
"No, he locked me in a room," Chloe said defiantly. "I'm leaving on my own, to figure stuff out. I'll be gone a few weeks at most," she tried to underplay her absence.
Alek stared at her in disappointed disbelief. "He locked… you can't go alone. You can't keep putting yourself at risk, I thought you'd finally realized that. It's stupid and irresponsible."
Chloe pressed her lips together, not happy about being reprimanded, her hand tightening on her jacket, covering the evidence of her latest "stupid" foray. "I'm going. This is what I need and I don't need your permission. I don't need anyone's permission."
Alek scowled at her but grabbed his jacket, shrugging it on and ushering her out the door. "What are you doing?" she asked in confusion.
"Going with you."
"But you should be with Valentina and Jasmine," Chloe stated the obvious, walking beside him as he moved down the hall at a brisk clip.
"Going with you is what Valentina would have wanted." Alek said with a rough timber in his voice, the emotional and physical toll of the previous day making themselves known.
"No-"
"Whether you like it or not you need me. Or another Mai, and I, for one, am not sure who to trust right now," Alek said with a confused look at back towards his adoptive mother's room. "So you're stuck with me."
Chloe's feet stopped moving and Alek looked at her impatiently. "What does that-"
"Never mind, it's not like you care, so there's no need to pretend," he said, tugging her into a room just as two Mai entered the hall about 30 feet from them. Chloe stepped back from him, her face paling, her look of hurt speaking her pain and regret. "You love who you love, right? No need to feel guilty about it. I'm over it already," he said carelessly, his emotions masked, but she knew him well enough to know it was all an act.
For a long time he'd confused her. His confidence bordering on arrogance, his sarcasm making it difficult for her to see the real Alek. But he'd revealed his softer side to her enough times now for her to know it was real, that he hide his sensitive and caring side behind glossy haughtiness and crisp one-liners tossed out in a British accent.
Chloe flashed to the night before. Returning home from a daylong outing with Brian.
Previously that night…
Chloe was talking to her mom, Meredith trying to give Chloe good advice about her love life. Chloe had just returned from a day out with Brian, visiting his grandmother. "You like him don't you?"
"I do," Chloe said, but her voice was uncertain.
Meredith frowned. "I don't see what the problem is, because I'm pretty sure he likes you too." Seeing Chloe's face pinch into a look of pained uncertainty, Meredith sat down. "Dating is confusing, especially when two boys like you, I get that. You have to be honest about your feelings, kiddo."
Tears made Chloe's eyes glisten. "I like Brian, things are so easy with him. We talk, we laugh, it's…"
"Easy?"
"Nice," Chloe corrected. "It's nice and it's comfortable, and he wants my help. He talks to me, but I…
"Is this about Alek?" Meredith guessed.
"I like Brian, but I don't know, and then there's Alek, and he's so…" Chloe makes a face that tells the story of frustration and bewilderment. "When I'm with him, I feel… so much, but… It's not easy. He's hard to get to know, and I know he cares about me, but even when he's saying it, he's still holding something back. And… and there is some stuff you don't know about."
"OK, for the moment, I'm going to let that go," Meredith nodded, looking at her daughter protectively. "I know you say you're confused, but Chloe, I know you, and I know you know how you feel. Be honest with yourself, then be honest with them," Meredith advised. "I don't know Alek very well, and as much as I appreciate him helping us when we needed it, if he is holding back from you, and Brian makes you happy, then I don't see why you're confused. I think you know exactly how you feel. Let yourself be happy, and if Brian makes you happy, then so be it."
"Brian does make me happy," Chloe said softly.
"You love who you love," Meredith stated.
Meredith left for her meeting with the new interested investor, and Chloe went upstairs to her room only to find Alek waiting. Chloe pulled up short her face vulnerable and worried as she looked at Alek's wounded expression.
"Alek…"
"You love who you love," Alek said his voice steady, eyes dark pools of disappointment and pain.
"No-"
"Guess I never really stood a chance, did I?" the hurt boy said.
Chloe's mouth opened to deny it, to tell him how she felt, but her feelings were still so unsettled. She knew she was attracted to him. He was handsome, strong, popular, he protected her, challenged her, annoyed her. But he couched every compliment and statement about his feelings in a web of words that left her unsure of what his real interest in her was. She knew he wasn't the shallow playboy he pretended to be, but she wasn't sure how far his interest in her went. And Chloe wasn't ready to say she liked him, not when she didn't know where she stood with him, or how she really felt about Brian.
"I was afraid I was making a fool of myself," he said
"Alek…" Chloe murmured, her voice begging for his understanding.
"Sometimes I hate being right," he said in resignation.
"It's not the way it sounded," she tried to explain.
"Oh really?" he said with some aggression. "Because it sounded like you are in love with him."
"I don't know what I feel. I'm sorry… but I shouldn't be with him anyway. My life is too complicated, too dangerous for anyone new to come into it now."
"Is that supposed to make me feel better? You're worried about his safety, so you can't be with him? I don't want you to choose me because I'm your only option." Alek walked to the window, intent on leaving. "You're making a huge mistake."
Chloe's phone beeped, notifying her of a text message and in her momentary distraction Alek disappeared out the window. The text was from her dad, telling her it was time to meet at the Train Museum on Fulton.
Chloe left her house, not bothering to tell her mom where she was going. Running to a main street, she flagged down a cab, unaware of the three shadows that followed her.
Previously that night….
At Valentina's condo, Valentina was chatting with Zane who had shown up saying he was supposed to meet Jasmine there. "The more I get to know Chloe, the more I realize that there really is something different about her. Something special," Valentina said as they sat and drank tea while waiting for Jasmine.
"Yeah?" Zane said with obvious speculation. "You have more faith than I do," he said, and something in his voice sounded wrong to Valentina. When she moved to the kitchen to refill the tea pot, her shot her with a poisonous dart. "I've imagined this day for most of my life," Zane taunted her as she fell to the ground, her body failing her. "The poison works fast, but not too fast. It's a paralytic agent. It won't kill you. Yet. You'll stay alive long enough to watch your daughter die."
Valentina lay motionless, eyes wide open with despair, on the floor.
==-Nine Lives-==
Present day…
"If we're going we should go, other Mai will be here soon and we won't be able to slip past all of them," Alek said motioning for Chloe to move down the hospital hallway.
"We could wait, see if-"
"What did I just say? If you want to go we have to go now," he said impatiently.
So they did. Slipping out the hospital, then out of the city. "Where are we going?" Alek asked as Chloe eased into the sparse late night city traffic, the roads wet with a dense layer of the habitual fog that often blanketed the city.
"North, I think."
==-Nine Lives-==
Words 6304
-I'm curious if this story will get any response… this show popped into my head about a month ago, I'm not sure why. The ending was terrible, and I went looking for some good fanfiction to "fix" that, but while on vacation the last few weeks this story came to me and just wanted to get out. I'm about 30k words in, with 4 complete and two partial chapters. I doubt it will be longer than 6 or 7 chapters in total.
I'm trying to finish it quickly so I can get back to my three WIPs in other fandoms…