AUTHOR'S NOTE This story references a group of characters that I made up as Max's unit back in Manticore. The ones that are mentioned on the show are: Max, Zack, Ben, Jondy, Krit, Syl, Brin, Tinga, Jack, Eva, Jace, and Zane. Seth is mentioned in the DA novel Before the Dark. I made up the following others to complete the unit (most of them are dead and are only mentioned): Sari, Rhett, Han, Kora, Creb, Vee, Etta, Add, and Del. The name Creb I borrowed from The Clan of the Cave Bear.

Also, I made up the designation numbers for those characters whose numbers aren't mentioned on the show.

DISCLAIMER I don't own James Cameron's characters OR Joss Whedon's characters. I did make up the ones listed above, however.

Chapter One

X5-602 stared sadly out the window. It was raining in Vancouver. Gray clouds hung low over the city, threatening to swallow the tops of the tall buildings into their murky mists. She sighed. It was strangely comforting when the weather matched her mood.

"Syl?"

She heard her brother call her name from the front hall of their apartment and turned. "In here."

Krit, also called X5-395 by some, put down the soaked bag of food he'd gotten from the market. "What's up, sis?" he asked worriedly. "You okay?"

Syl shrugged and continued to stare out the window. "Just depressed I guess. It's one of those days."

Krit sat beside her on the makeshift window seat – a T-shirt stuffed with newspapers. Syl had seen a picture of a window seat in some Pre-Pulse magazine and decided that she had to have one, so Krit got creative. It really spruced up their apartment, they decided. When they'd been forced to relocate to Canada, the window seat went with them.

He put his arm around her shoulders and she leaned her head on his neck. "I miss them," she whispered.

"I know."

"It was our fault." She twisted and looked up at her brother and best friend. "Why'd Maxie have to die?" Syl asked, tears beginning to fill her eyes as they always did when she talked about her big brother and baby sister. "And who knows what they did to Zack after they took him. What happened to him?"

"Manticore happened. It happened to all of us, Syl." Krit wished that he had more words of comfort to give to her, but there was nothing. "For all we know, Zack's inside just waiting to find a way to get out again."

Syl's lower lip trembled. "Maybe." Abruptly, she stood up. "I'm going for a walk."

"It's raining."

She shrugged and rummaged around in the closet for a coat. "I'll be fine. I just need to, you know, clear my head and stuff."

She fled the apartment without waiting to hear her brother's response. It was cold outside, but the cold had never really bothered her. That was something that all of the siblings had in common, but she and Max especially.

It seemed like everyone in the unit had shared something in common with everyone else. She and Max didn't feel cold. Max and Jondy never slept. Jack, Vee, and Max all had worse seizures than the others. Sari and Kora could hold their breath longer than anyone. Jack and Brin couldn't hold their breath long at all. Eva and Zack felt the need to always protect the others. Ben and Tinga had been exceptionally good at making up stories. Seth and Zane were loners. Tinga and Jace cared for them if they got sick and didn't want to go to the infirmary. Krit and Max looked alike.

They were all family, but everyone had their own friends. She and Krit had been best friends since they'd been born. The same was true about Eva and Etta, Brin and Tinga, and Max and Jondy. The boys never forged bonds as close as the girls, with the exception of Del and Add, the twins.

She missed her family so much. Thinking about them stirred an ache in her heart that nothing could drive away. Without Krit, she would have been utterly lost and quickly gone mad on the Outside. He was always there to help her through the hard times. But there were times when she missed her sisters. She missed how they'd stay up talking, ignoring Zack's scoldings until the Colonel came in. She missed having other girls around to talk to. And she missed all of her other brothers and how hard they tried to protect the girls.

She'd failed Zack and Max. When they contacted her and Krit to help blow up the Manticore genetics lab, she'd been all too willing to help. If they took down Manticore, they'd be free.

And what happened? Max had died. Zack was God knows where. And she was left feeling like she should have done something to save them.

Syl walked aimlessly through her neighborhood. Canada hadn't felt the effects of the Pulse nearly at all and was still an affluent country compared to the United States. Sometimes she looked at her window seat with newspapers sticking out the end and laughed. Here they could afford a real window seat, but they couldn't bear to see the old one go.

Arms crossed and head bent against the wind, Syl didn't see anyone ahead of her, but she felt a presence. She looked up and felt pity for the apparently homeless woman that she saw at the next corner. She looked cold. Her wet red hair, streaked with gray, was plastered to her face and neck as she sat huddled on a bench.

Syl approached her cautiously. "Are you alright?" she asked.

She looked up. Syl was taken aback to realize not only that this woman wasn't nearly as old as she'd originally thought, but also that she was blind. Her eyes were milky white and made Syl uneasy. She couldn't have been more than 40 years old. "Oh yes, I'm fine. I'm waiting for someone."

Sadly, Syl nodded. The poor woman had obviously lost her mind. No one was coming for her. She shrugged off her coat and wrapped it around the woman's shoulders. "Here. This should keep you warm for the time being."

She looked up and a chill crept down Syl's spine as the blind woman seemed to meet her eye. "Thank you."

Smiling, Syl said, "You're welcome." She glanced at the gray, turbulent sky and sighed. "I think I should head back home."

The other woman nodded. "It's a nasty day outside. Not a good day for walking."

Syl half-smiled. "Try to stay out of the rain." She turned around and headed back home.

The blind woman listened as Syl's steps faded away with a small smile on her face. Patiently she waited as another woman, slightly younger with brown hair, approached her with two umbrellas. "Next time, let's do this when it isn't raining," she requested as one of the umbrellas was handed to her.

The brunette laughed. "All right." The two started walking in the opposite direction that Syl had taken. "So, what do you think? Is it her?"

She smiled. "It's her."

The brunette's smile matched the redhead's. "We'll go for her tomorrow."