I am sooooo sorry. I loved all the reviews. But seriously, please criticize, give suggestions. I think that I'm going to hit a writers block soon. In my defense, my little sister deleted, yes deleted, this chapter when I was almost done, not once, but twice. I'm working on the next one. Please enjoy. Oh, IMPOTANT…please read my story, "okay with me." It's kind of a prequel to this story….read, you'll like it…maybe. By the way, the poem below is from Robin Hobb. Read the Farseer Trilogy, Liveship Trilogy, and the Tawny Man Trilogy, in that order. You can skip Liveship ones. They are just wonderful.
In that last dance of chances
I shall partner you no more.
I shall watch another turn you
As you move across the floor.
In that last dance of chances
When I bid your life good-bye
I will hope she treats you kindly.
I hope you learn to fly.
In that last dance of chances
When I know you'll not be mine
I will let you go with longing
And the hope that you'll be fine.
In that last dance of chances
We shall know each others minds.
We shall part with our regrets
When ties no longer bind.
- The Fool (Robin Hobb's character)
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You know those pauses that they talk about in books? The ones were you know that the story just changed, and nothing will ever be the same for the characters? Well, Sam was pretty sure that they were having one of those. Just to check that he hadn't gone crazy, he asked, "Dean…" damn his voice hadn't done that since puberty, "did she just say that...are these really…"God the words were hard.
Dean, as always, took care of the problem, "Yeah, uhhh…yeah, these are mine." Maybe it was just his imagination, but Sam would have sworn that he saw Dean's arms tighten compulsively around the bundle in his arms. Tilting his head foreword, then towards Sam, and finally towards their father, he said, "Tristan, and the girls, Blythe and Noah." They lapsed into silence again.
John was trying to grasp the four simple words, 'Dean was a father.' He didn't doubt that Dean could take care of the kids, he had practically raised Sam even though he wasn't with them half the time. But he just didn't understand how something like this could have happened. Dean had always tomcatted around, but John had always hoped that once they killed the demon his son could settle down with a nice woman. Someone who could keep him grounded who he could come home to, and kids.
John looked down at the baby in his arms. 'Who the hell names a girl Noah?' The little corners of her mouth lifted as she gurgled out a giggle and waved her arm, her fist grasping. John conceded, offering her his finger which she grabbed and tried to chew on. John suddenly knew that he already thought of her as partially his. She had eyes that John knew belonged to his son, and her mother's hair.
The mother… In all of John's dreams of Dean settling down, it had been with a nice woman. Max seemed like that type that Dean might have met at a bar. John had seen the type before. A spoiled military brat who managed to get through the army because of daddy's help. She was probably his little princess, and got to play bitchy tough girl without worrying about discipline. She seemed too wild to be a mother. John wondered if that was why they hadn't married; they already knew that they couldn't make it work.
Dean spoke up again, "Look, I'm going to get you guys settled down in one of the spare apartments, then we need to talk." Both John and Sam agreed, and started to follow Dean, still toting the babies.
Dean opened a door to one of the building, Sam and John followed him in and waited while he took the babies and settled them in the center of the bed. Dean continued to move around the room, shifting things and checking on menial details, stalling. John decided to put and end to it, saying in a somewhat exhausted voice, "Dean…" he met his eyes, and for a moment the near panicked look in them made John want to comfort him. But then he looked away, collected his nerves, and his father's gaze with a determined look.
"You guys should sit down," seeing that they weren't moving he added, "Really." Once they were seated, he began, "Sammy, how much do you know about the hunting trips I used to go on when we were kids?"
Sam was a little surprised by the question, "Not much, just what Dad told me. That you needed the practices, and could handle it."
"Dean, you don't need to bring this up now." The warning in John's voice caught Sam's attention. He turned questioning eyes towards Dean.
"Yeah, actually I do. Sam, when Mom and Dad were trying to get pregnant for the first time they were having some problems. They went to go see a doctor, military because Dad was still covered. They did all the tests, and asked questions. Wanted to know about their families' physical, physiological, hell even emotional history. Anyways, the tests came back and they told Mom that she wasn't able to carry a baby.
On the bright side, there was an experimental procedure that could help them. Once it was all tested it would probably cold a shit load, but they were still looking for couples willing to try something new, so Mom and Dad were offered it free.
The basic idea was that they took the necessary samples, put them together in a Petri dish, and then used a surrogate. Nine months later, you've got a baby. Of course, scientists would do testing and whatever necessary alterations to make sure that the baby didn't have any genetic problems. They even got Dad to sign a form allowing them to use genetic manipulation to get rid of 'imperfection.' It was really too bad when the doctors told them that there had been some problems, and they lost the baby about four months in.
A couple years later Dad heard about a program that was studying the effects of genetic engineering on fetuses and the resulting children. It was all hushed over, but Dad still had some connections, so he looked into it. Turned out that all the scientists, nurses, doctors, everyone that had anything to do with it was on this program's payroll. He kept prying into it, raised enough of a fuss that he eventually got the attention that he was looking for. Bottom line was that he found out that the baby, I, was alive. The deal was that I got to go home with him, but I went back whenever they wanted me for testing, observations, whatever. Dad would have argued for more, but all this was pretty high up in the government." Dean paused to let it sink in.
Sam tried to wrap his mind around it, "So…Dean, you're…wow" Okay time to look at the facts and save the awkward emotional baggage for latter. After all, he'd heard of surrogates being used for babies before, not too weird. "But what does that have to do with all of this?"
"Sammy," Dean began again, "that is all this." He ran his hands over his face and rubbed the back of his neck for a moment, "What do you guys know about transgenics?" Sam felt the floor drop out from beneath him. 'No, no, no…fuck no.'
"They, umm…they're a mix…or animal and humans," 'like that cat lady we saw this morning' "they were made to hunt and kill things for the military," 'kinda like how Dean hunts demons' "and…" 'wait, solid ground "there are a couple hundred of the. They're all living in a barricaded off part of Seattle. They have some outside interaction, press conferences and stuff, but the army has a pretty firm hold on them.
Dean's smile was almost wistful. "Yeah, good old Terminal City. Well Sammy let me tell you a few national secrets. First of all, trangenics have been walking in and out of TC ever since they started gathering there and the government can't do shit to stop it. Which actually brings me to number two. It's a good thing the transgenics didn't get too attached to Seattle; there are too many of them to fit. Last time I took a head count there are between five and six thousand of us."
Sam heard a ringing in his ears. He wasn't quite sure if it had started at the word, 'thousand' or 'us'. He wanted to question his brother, but he was already talking again.
We all started form human samples. They wanted to make sure that there was a history of intelligence, mental and genetic stability, and hopefully some military service. Didn't hurt if they were physically attractive. Toss in some Einstein, McArthur… anything worth having, and they had a fairly good base to start manipulating. They started with transhumans. Didn't really care how they looked as long as they got the job done. They usually specialized, you know, desert or underwater ops, even cranked out the pys-ops.
By the time they got to the X-series they were more specific. They wanted perfect all around, and human looking too. First series were a bust for a bunch of reasons, only a handful left from each of them. But the X-5s, damn, those really were perfect…well not really. Sometimes they were a little to rebellious, one of the side effects of the independent thinking they needed for leadership requirements, and the seizures, but those were controlled later on. Of course they tried to improve on it.
They wanted the X-6s to be more submissive. Took away some of the punch, and in the end, they were even harder to control than we were sometimes. If you were able to prove that you were dominant, they would follow you like puppies, but their instincts wouldn't accept the normals as dominant, so they were tossing around the idea of getting rid of the entire series because they couldn't control them. X-5s ended up having to give a standing order to the '6s to follow all the guards' orders. Didn't always work out perfectly, but apparently it was good enough for government work
They tried for total submission in the X-7s. Ended up with freaky hive minded bat kids. Haven't seen one for a while. They're probably all dead. Kinda freaked out by their baby Draculas they added more human DNA to the mix. Poor kids really didn't enjoy the hunt as much as they should have. Most of them probably wouldn't have passed the sensitivity culls if the X-5s hadn't coached them through some of them. Tried again with the X-9s. Mentally, they were about right, but they didn't quite measure up physically. They might have settled on the X-10s. They were a little stronger than the '9s and more aggressive than the '8s. Their real flaw was that they developed at a human rate, whereas the earlier series all had accelerated growth and hit all the developmental landmarks a lot faster.
Anyways, I was around two years old when they told me that I'd be participating in a special program. And yeah, before you ask, I could understand all this when I was two. Dad you have no idea how close you came to just being killed to get you out of the way, but they thought it would make an interesting study, and it would improve me long term deep cover skills. I was supposed to act like a normal slightly above average kid with you. I gave a full repot every time I came back. Got extra training and trips to psy-ops too, just to make sure that I wasn't being negatively affected by the outside world. I was pulled from the program back in '09. There was even talk of terminating me because of…stuff. After some intensive testing I was determined to be so fucking stable they let me go back. I fucked up a mission a few years back. That combined with some other stuff…I was sure that they'd already loaded the gun for my execution, miracle I made it through that. Then Manticore went down. It tried to just go back…you know, be Dean Winchester, but I had to go back to Seattle to help them. They're my family."
Sam and John stood in varying states of shock. Unbelievable words and phrases floated through their minds, refusing to form complete thoughts. "You…you're a transgenic? And everyone here…All that time it was just some mission? You wee studying us or something? Sam couldn't help but feel betrayed.
"No…shit! It wasn't like that. I mean at first I just did what they wanted me to do but…Honestly; I never even wanted to tell you. It's not just that I'm a transgenic…I don't even know what the hell I am. Not really. All of us, we were just supposed to be soldiers, no feeling no thought, but we weren't. It's like…God I don't even know. Everything, smell, sight, touch, scenes and instincts that I don't even know what to call; they're all hyper alert all the time. And then there was you guys. Believe it or not you were my version of normal.
For the past four years…I've been, me. X-5 494 was just a soldier. CO with a few black marks on my record but a near perfect soldier when my unit suffers as much as I do for my failures. Dean…well you know him. Now I'm Alec. You know, as in Smart-Alec." He gave a twisted little smile, "It's still me though. You're still my family."
"Why did you just leave then, huh? You just disappeared."
"Max…I left her. Things were starting to settle down, we'd decided to have kids and everything. I called you," he cask a look at John, "I wanted to tell you, maybe not about everything, but at least introduce you to Max. You know go on a hunt for a week and slip in that I had a girlfriend or something. But…well, you didn't answer. I left her to go looking for you. She wouldn't have hated me you know, or at least she would have forgiven me. But I had to be here for it." He glanced over at the surprisingly quite babies who in turn stared at him with liquid eyes.
"Max, she's one of them to? I thought she said her dad was a commander here?"
"Lydecker? Holy Hell! No…just no. Max is one of us. 'Deck used to be one of the commanders at Manticore. He was the best of them, but we all still kinda hate him. Max and he just have a more…strained relationship."
They spoke for another hour before Max showed up at the door. Watching them carefully she just smiled before picking up two of the babies. Alec said his quiet goodnights and promised to see them the next day, saying that they should report with the soldiers in the morning if they wanted something to do until the afternoon. "Say good night to Sammy and Grandpa " Max whispered to the triplets before leaving. Sam and John found them selves smiling as the babies cooed and waved their little fists.
Sam and John were jolted from their sleep the next morning the shrill sound of a trumpet. Sam looked over at the clock. There it sat, innocently displaying the numbers 4:00. Sam felt the sudden urge to hit the damn thing. Following his father's lead, Sam rolled out of bed and pulled on some clothes.
They were greeted with a particular site when they arrived at the drill field. There were definitely two distinct groups. The first was composed of what John n could identify as a few well seasoned vets and a few younger recruits. Probably at the top of their classes and old enough to have been on a few missions. The other group…well, frankly if it weren't for the dog/cat/lizard/something people standing amongst them John would have thought he'd found a gathering of models. He was willing in the entire lot of them. They were young, from five to maybe twenty-five. It was unnerving to see so many perfect faces staring blankly foreword.
"So, you're John and Sam Winchester?" They turned to look at the speaker, a man in his 50s, still solidly built, with a full head of grey hair, and steal grey eyes.
"Yes, sir." John had a feeling that this man was used to being addressed as 'sir.' "I'm John Winchester, and this is my son, Sam."
"It's a pleasure to meet you both. I've heard only positive things about you. I'm Col. Donald Lydecker. I was informed that you'd be watching some of my kids during training today." The man, Lydecker, scanned the crowd. He hadn't asked it as a question, so neither Sam nor John felt compelled to answer. After a moment of consideration her called out in a clear voice, "X5-325, come here. The rest of you can begin your morning exercises and proceed with the day." As one they saluted and, in straight lines, began to jog towards the perimeter in what Sam would have called and ungodly sprint if they hadn't seemed so relaxed.
He noticed that the older, more…normal group was still standing at attention. Lydecker turned to them and said, "Congratulations men. You've just completed the most difficult training of your lives. You all have your next assignments. I want you all to get something from the mess and report back here at 0700 with all of your belonging ready for transport. Dismissed."
As the men left he turned his attention to the blond woman standing before them. She was just a few years older than Sam. She had clever, green-grey eyes and an almost milky complexion with cheeks and lips the same rosy color. "X5-325, I want you to escort these two for the day," why did that sound a lot like baby-sit "Get them fed, exercised, let them watch, participate, whatever they like."
"Yes, sir."
"Good. Dismissed." She continued to watch impassively for a moment as he walked away before she said in a somewhat monotonous tone, "Asshole."
Seeing their surprised look she shook her head and gave a grin, "I don't hate him enough to have an excuse to kill him…at least not right now and we have to act like good little soldiers during the formal bits, so I'm forced to fall back on calling him names behind his back."
She continued without pause, "So, I'm Cece ad I'll be your escort today. Follow me please." With that she turned on her heel and began walking in the other direction. John and Sam quickly caught up.
"So," Sam started, "Cece…you're a…"
"Transgenic? Yeah, genetically enhanced killing machine with all the bells and whistles." The look in her eyes was not one of outright hostility, more like a challenge.
"Bells and whistles?"
She gave a smile, part pity, part humor, part vindictive pleasure. "You'll see." She led them into a building. The men who had been standing in formation were now seated, in different stages of eating and talking excitedly.
Upon seeing Cece they all fell quiet. She gave a small laugh, "Don't worry, you aren't in training anymore. Feel free to bitch and moan all you like." Needing no more prodding, they continued.
Cece walked up to the cafeteria style line of food and grabbed a plate. She promptly began loading it with as much food as would fit, sticking a piece of toast in her mouth when she ran out of room. John moved to stop her, "Miss, we can get our own food."
Balancing the plate in one hand and taking the toast from her mouth with the other she said, "Given your ages, I would hope so." They watched in awe as she polished off what John mentally referred to as a 'growing teenaged boy' sized meal as they ate their own meals. When she caught them staring, she just mumbled something about high metabolisms.
After, she took them back outside where she put them through a good hour of two of exercises. They were both panting by the end of it. She gave a nod of what might have been approval before passing them bottles of water and motioning for them to follow her again. After a moment, she stopped.
In a somewhat strained tone she asked, "Do you hate him now? I can count on one hand the number of ordinaries that he actually gives a damn about. He's not like what people say on TV. He didn't want to hurt you, just…he's important to me, to all of us. It would hurt him if you hated him."
Her earnest tone prodding Sam into honesty, "We don't hate him. It's just that, it's like we don't know him."
She gave a bittersweet smile, "Fair enough. You don't. Part of him, you'll never understand." She turned her back and continued walking before speaking in a much lighter voice. "I'm going to let you spar with a few of our X-9s. I'll go ahead and warn you. They look cute as hell, but don't go easy on them.
2 hours later
"Is it just me, or did I just get my ass kicked by an eight year old in pigtails?"
John just grunted in response, but when he lifted his arm to touch a bump in his head and couldn't hold help but to exclaim when the muscle gave a sudden twinge of pain. "God, damn." Sighing he said, "I'm not sure what hurts worse, my pride or the rest of me." Just then, said eight year old bounced by them, smiling sweetly at them as her blond curls created a halo around her head.
Sam voiced John's thoughts, "Devil child…possessed at least." John just grunted again.
Later
"Come on, come on!" Cece was more energetic than she had been all day. 'Hell' Sam thought, watching her weight from one foot to the other while he and his father scraped their plates clean, 'she really was bouncing.'
"What are we in such a hurry for?"
She gave a smile that could have lit up a city. "You'll see." Her smile was contagious, but they were both still weary. The pigtailed devil had a cute smile also…and dimples too.
They followed her to a building near the living quarters. They were a little surprised at the guards. Other that the entrances to the base, they hadn't seen any stationed at doors. Apparently though, they knew Cece well, because they just nodded her through and barley bothered raising an eyebrow over her guests. She turned down a few hallways before opening a door.
The first thing they noticed was the large figure that immediately stepped foreword to wrap an arm around Cece's shoulders. They recognized his face and voice simultaneously; Biggs. "Hey, Cece. How's the babysitting-op going?"
She just rolled her eyes, before dropping down to her knew and saying in that voice, "How are my favorite boys?" That voice, of course, being the voice that women usually reserved for small animals, babies, and, occasionally, sappy romances. Which, made sense, considering that she was addressing twin thumb sucking babies…well technically toddlers the way they were standing, but they looked too young for that classification. Cece stopped her happy babbling for long enough to say, "You've already met Biggs. These are my nine month old boys, Rae and Keif."
Seeing that they had been completely dismissed from Biggs and Cece's attentions they looked around the room. It wasn't really just a room, more like a gym or an atrium with carpeting and couches. The number of doors convinced John that this was a common room. Judging by the dozen of so couple playing with children ranging from infants to about a year old, it was a nursery.
"Cutest little killing machines that you ever did see, huh?" Dean's voice came from behind them. John had given up on calling him Alec at least mentally. There if nowhere else he would always be Dean. They turned to like at him, he was dressed in what appeared to be grey standard issues shirts and cammo. Going by the sarcasm, they decided not to answer.
He gave them a grin before leading them toward a cluster of people. Sam's first response to seeing that several of the women had their tops up, exposing their breasts to feed babies, was to slap a hand over his eyes and back away apologizing, but considering the way the women smiled, and if possible, raised a hand in greeting without breaking the flow of conversation around them, he managed to control the reaction.
"Well, it's about time you got here." Though she had somehow escaped their immediate notice, Max was sitting a few feet away from them pulling her shirt down. Alec sat down next to her, "Yeah, I got held up doing some extra drills with the X-8s." As soon as he was settled, he was swarmed by little rolling, crawling, and totting babies.
Watching the babies play in the circle of what Sam assumed were the parent, he realized that they didn't really act like normal babies. They were more like kittens, or maybe puppies. They wrestled and growled at each other in tones that he was sure humans couldn't produce. He ever saw one of them start to chew on another's ear. The strangest thing though, was how aware they were. Even the youngest of them, unable to hold his head up year, was following people with his eyes and giving toothless little baby grins from his mother's arms.
Sam got on his knees, feeling like a five year old trying to get a litter of puppies' attention. A little one, with curling red hair barely covering her hair stared at him for a moment, so close he could touch. He watched her open her little mouth, and flare her nostrils, 'shit, she can smell me.' She immediately grabbed the leg of the nearest adult and hid her head behind it. 'she can actually recognize me as a stranger…probably a human stranger.' The reaction was surprising, but Sam started to feel a little awkward after the third child hid from him.
One did approach him eventually, he recognized her as one of Alec's daughters. Not moving, almost scared that he would frighten her away if he did, he sat as she toppled into his lap and reached up to play with his face, as though she could move around his feature to her liking. Eventually she gave up and let out in a giggling, slurred voice, "Thammy."
He turned towards his father only to see him lifting up another of the three while the baby squealed, "Gampa." After the initial contact, others started to flock over to inspect them. Sam looked over at Alec and Max to see what they were making of the little melodrama. As far as he could tell, neither had even noticed.
Later…again
Sam knew he was dragging his feet, but dammit he was tired. They had been drug across the base ten times and right now both he and his father would kill for a bed.
"Don't worry." Cece was in a bright mood…had they really just met her this morning? "This is our last stop for the day. You haven't seen anything until you've seen X-5s sparring." They were nearing a large group of people in their early twenties. Cece turned to them again, "Okay, this is it for me. You guys just stay out of trouble; Alec will meet up with you when this is all done." She paused a beat, "Nice to meet you..." Then she was gone, disappearing into the crowd.
Sam and John stood at the edge of the crowd, waiting for the next match to start. It soon became apparent that the group had formed a circle and the fight would take place in the middle. Sam saw something out of the corner of his eye…Max.
He nudged his father and pointed her out, and he was getting ready to call out a greeting when she took off running a few steps in another direction. Following her with his eyes, he saw her take a running jump at a male figure and wrap her legs around him before locking lips. The man had dark shaggy hair…not Alec. "Holy shit…"
Sam mentally echoed his father. That cheating bitch, what the hell? They continued to watch, stunned, as Max was set down, and kissed the man once more before heading toward the circle. Sam was still so chocked it took him a moment to realize that she would be the next fighter. 'What am I supposed to tell Alec? How could she?'
John's own feelings were that of betrayal. He had just stated to like the spunky girl Dean was with. This was low, they'd just had children. He felt a deep welling of pity for his son and grandchildren as Max sauntered to the center and began to stretch her arms.
"You know Sam," Max's voice called out, "I really can't wait to put fist in that pretty face of yours." Max turned towards them "You know self flattery is a sin." Was she schizophrenic?
That's when he saw it. Max walked into the circle…towards Max. The new Max replied, "Oh, come on Sam. You want to keep talking or do you want to get you ass kicked."
Sam…twins…weird, but okay. Sam felt a wave a relief realizing that the woman wasn't Max. Then he watched as they started fighting.
Sam, the girl, launched herself forward at an incredible speed and tried to sweep Max's legs out from under her. Max flipped backwards and came foreword kicking and punching. The fight continued for a few minutes, each taking blows, before Max was knocked down. Sam was aiming a kick towards her head what Max caught her foot and twisted it until she joined her on the ground. Max lifted her leg up to a 90 degree angle to her body before bringing it down with enough strength to crush Sam's skull, before stopping it only an inch above her twin's head.
The fight was called and both the participants got up and left the circle. Max walked towards them, wiping a stream of blood from her lip before grinning. "How's it going?" They greeted her. "Only one more left." An almost obsessive light lit up in her eyes as she stared at the ring, and chewed on her lip.
The entire group grew quite. A blond man stepped into the ring. He had dark blond hair and deep blue eyes; he was also about 50 pounds heavier than Alec, who was following him. "Thane." Max answered before they could ask. Then, half talking to herself she added, "It doesn't really matter who wins, this isn't official, but it gives everyone an idea of what their chances are of winning in an actual challenge." 'challenge?'
The fight that followed was…intense. There was the normal punching, kicking, supernatural blurring, but there was also biting, drawn-out chokeholds, and blows to the head which looked like they could be deadly. It was like watching two animals fight. Sam found that he could barely identify the serious, vicious man in front of him with Dean. It was Alec who eventually pinned Thane down, fingers curled into claws around his neck and chest heaving. He had barley stood back up when Max ran across the ring and circled her arms around his neck. The redhead they had seen earlier with Max went to Thane and helped him up, rubbing his shoulder and leaning over to kiss his cheek.
Max pressed her lips against Alec's. She could easily taste the blood in his mouth. HE was covered in bruises, and his ribs might be bruised, but nothing was broken. She leaned in closer into him as he wrapped his arms tightly around her, and inhaled deeply. There was, of course, extra adrenaline, but it was still Alec; a little musky, blood, scotch, and leather, and under that, a healthy, earthy smell. It was almost like a wave that settled over her. At once a kick in the stomach, waking her up and heightening her senses and rounding out the rough edges of her mind.
She smiled and kissed him again, this time letting it last. They were both covered in bruises and blood, and she was purring. Who would ever have thought that she'd be here? Surrounded by warm, moving, transgenic bodies and in Alec's arms after watching him beat the hell out of a friend. Absolute, nirvana.
Hope you liked it. Please Review. And read okay with me. Thanks. Bye.
