Disclaimer: nup!! Don't own it

A/N: ok, I know it's been AGES! But in my defence, I had exams, and then I went away, and I totally forgot that I'd finished this chapter but hadn't uploaded it, woops! Anyway, here it is, so enjoy!!

Chapter 9: Baby with no parents

'Hey man, wait up!' Alec stopped and turned at the sound of Biggs' voice. 'Man, do you know how fast you walk when you're preoccupied.' He told him, with a light glare that broke into a grin after about three seconds.

'Yes, I have been told I walk fast, it's a trait I've been told is very annoying, along with pacing. So, what can I do for you this not-so-fine morning?' He asked as he started walking towards the dining hall, leaving Biggs to follow if desired, which apparently he did.

'So, for some unknown reason, quite possibly because someone managed to kill Renfro or at least slip her something, we can pray, we have the entire day off. What do you plan to do with your time?'

'I was thinking sleep, food and then kicking your ass later in the game of your choice.' He said the last bit with a grin as he looked down at Biggs, who was now looking very indignant.

'Hey, you can stop that high and mighty thing right now, Mr I'm-a-head-taller-than-you. Just cause I'm smaller than you, doesn't mean I can't kick your ass, especially if we play one-on-one dodge ball.'

'I wasn't aware I was being high and mighty, or that I, apparently, have a new name. And I don't think it's a full head, Mr I'm-short-so-I-over-exaggerate-everything-to-make-myself-feel-better. See, two can play at that game, and I'm still better by the way. So prepare to be sore.'

'Sore?'

'From all the times I plan on hitting you with the ball later – no dirty comments, please.' They grinned simultaneously as they entered the dining hall. It wasn't quite full; it appeared many people were taking full advantage of the day off by sleeping in. But he saw all of his unit were up and sitting at a table, including Max. He felt his stomach tighten at the sight of her; she hadn't said a word to him since that first day he'd been out of med bay, and it was killing him. He'd tried to talk to her a few times, but he'd gotten absolutely nothing, so he'd changed tactics and had only talked to her as her CO, but even then, he got silence, or at the very most a 'yes'. He knew that if she kept it up, and the guards started to notice, she'd be sent to Psy-ops, so he was hoping, for her sake as much as his, that she started answering him in the next few days. He saw Ben look up and wave, followed by the rest of the unit, except Max. Apparently that day won't be today. He followed Biggs over to collect food, or what passed as food in Manticore, and then they made their way over to the table. There were two empty spots; one on the end, and the one next to it, which was next to Max. Alec shot Biggs a look, and then looked at the chair, so Biggs rolled his eyes but took the seat. Alec sat on the end of the table, opposite Ben, who was now staring at him. He tried to ignore him, but when he didn't relent, he changed tactics and started staring back. It was like staring at himself in a mirror, he decided. They were dressed in identical clothes, they were sitting in the same position, and both were perfectly still, blank expression, their trays of food untouched.

It took Biggs and Sash, who was sitting next to Ben, about three minutes to realise that Ben and Alec weren't talking. They started to watch them, equally confused and fascinated by their staring. Within ten minutes, everyone was watching the pair, everyone but Max. They all wanted to ask what was going on, but their need to see who would win overrode that. But unfortunately, neither won as they both look towards Max as she pushed her chair back, picking up her tray as she stood. Now twelve pairs of eyes were looking back and forth between Max and Alec, who was once again imitating a stone as he watched Max. Max walked the two steps to stand next to Alec.

'X5-452, heading to the exercise wing to workout, sir!' Max stated, saluting as she balanced her tray in one hand. She waited for his acknowledgment, which took him a bit longer while he got over the shock of her actually saying something to him, and after a brief nod of the head, she moved away, out of the room. Alec watched her go, and then turned back to his tray, suddenly very interested in his food. Ben and Biggs shared a look, and played an extremely quick game of rock, paper, scissors. They held out their hands, and Biggs swore under his breath at the result; Ben's hand formed scissors while Biggs' hand was flat as paper.

'Fine, I'll do it.' He muttered, giving Ben an evil eye. He turned his attention to Cece now, who had moved up into Max's seat when she vacated, and they started talking about the game Alec and Biggs had planned for later. When he saw Alec stand, he gave him a three second head start before he rose, giving Cece a quick goodbye and shooting Ben another glare before following Alec out the door.

'Hey man, wait up!' Alec turned his head but continued walking.

'What, is that your catchphrase of the day?' he asked sarcastically, but Biggs picked up the annoyance in his tone. He took a deep breath, giving himself a minute to decide how to breach the subject. He settled for an easy opening comment.

'Just wondering when you want to do the dodge ball thing.' Biggs said with a casual shrug and an innocent look.

'One hour. And don't pull that innocent face crap on me, I invented that, remember? Does this have something to do with you and Ben playing rock, paper, scissors just now?' Biggs shot him a grin and clapped him on the back.

'You know, that's why you make such a good CO. You don't miss a thing. You see everything; know exactly what's going on, if something's wrong. Like, let's say, with Max for instance. Now, being such a good CO, you would know that there's clearly something going on in that odd little head of hers. Now, as someone who is not CO, and who has noticed, I might be a little curious as to why you haven't tried to talk to her or see what's wrong. Now, I don't know, you could have a plan for all I know, but I, not being a CO, was just curious.' Alec stopped and looked at Biggs, an incredulous look on his face.

'Was that your 'trying-not-to-be-obvious-and-failing-at-it-' way of asking me why I haven't tried to help Max?'

'It's possible. See I told you; you're an excellent CO.' Biggs told him with a quick grin, and Alec couldn't help the small grin that flashed before annoyance covered his face.

'Well, as CO I'm telling you that 452 is acting as a soldier is supposed to, and as her CO I shouldn't be complaining.' It was Biggs' turn to look incredulous.

'Well, yeah, but as the person who I walked in on, not two months ago, in a fairly compromising position with said soldier, I would think that you would be extremely concerned about her behaviour.' Biggs saw the emotion flash through his eyes, and was happy to see it.

'Yeah, well maybe I'm just not that person any more.' That got Biggs angry, and pinned Alec against the wall as he made to move away.

'Bullshit. You know, if it hadn't have been for Sash, you'd still be walking around like a zombie too. And now it's your turn to help Max. So get down of your bloody high horse and do something already. A month is long enough for you to give her space.' Biggs released him, smoothed out his top and then stepped back and gave him a salute, although Alec could see the sarcasm behind it. 'Now, I'll see you in an hour for that game, sir' Alec sighed as he watched him walk down the corridor. Guess I have to go talk to Max.

Just as he thought, he found Max in the rec room working on the punching bag. He approached her quietly and she either didn't notice or simply didn't acknowledge his presence.

'You know, you keep it up and they're gonna have to get a new punching bag in here.' He was pleased to see her hands hesitate for a fraction of a second before she continued as if he'd said nothing. 'So, it's weird being back at Manticore, huh? After more than three months outside, it's odd, getting up at the same time each morning, training again. I think the weirdest bit is having to wear the same clothes every day again.' She continued punching, throwing in a kick now and again. 'Hmm, the silent treatment. Interesting tactic, I must say. But if you don't wanna talk, that's fine by me. You know, there are far more productive things we could both be doing right now, instead of talking and punching. Although you'd most likely get just as hot.' There you go, he thought when she turned to face him, a furious look in her eyes. She looked about ready to snap at him, but she seemed to think twice and in a second her eyes were blank again, and she began punching again, with a renewed energy. He decided to try one last thing before giving up. 'You know, I am curious about just one thing; when you're punching that bag, are you picturing my face or White's?'

'You have no idea what you're talking about!' She screamed at him, and then looked about ready to bite her tongue off. She jerked back around and continued punching the bag. 'I'm sorry sir, thankyou for your concern.' Her voice was monotonous and she every bit the perfect soldier as she clearly ended the conversation. But Alec was smiling to himself as he walked away. He had gotten a reaction out of her, now all he had to do was wait.

As he left the room, he didn't notice Abbey, who had followed him and Biggs out of the dining hall and had listened to the exchange between the two, and then Max and Alec. She too was smiling, but for a different reason. She knew the real Max was in there, it was simply a matter of getting Max to let her out. And she knew just the person to help persuade her to do so.

'Max, can I talk to you for a minute?' Abbey said as she approached Max, who was still at the punching bag, completely oblivious to the cheering and whistling three metres away from her. When she didn't respond, Abbey tried again. '452, can I talk to you for a minute?' This time Max stopped and looked up, and Abbey held back a small sigh. It was a very bad sign when Max would only respond to her designation.

'Of course, 221. What is it?' She walked over and sat down on an empty chair, while Abbey took the one opposite her. It was then that Max noticed the woman with Abbey. She was smiling brightly, and had short brown hair and perfect teeth.

'452, this is 884, or Mia as she's recently become known. She's psy-ops; she's just here to talk.'

'Psy-ops?' Max cast a wary glance at Mia, who was yet to say anything.

'Don't worry, she's not here to evaluate or anything, she just got bored with the other psy-ops nerds and so I invited her to come along, watch the game and everything. Who do you think will win?' Max turned to the game for the first time since it had started, and stared at the two men for a moment.

'Statistically speaking, 494 is taller, faster, slightly smarter and therefore a quick thinker, and given the fact that his records give him two to one odds against 511, it is fairly likely he'll win again.' Max stated; rolling of the facts like he was a specimen they were examining as opposed to a real person. Abbey looked at Mia, and nodded her head.

'452 I need you to look at me and listen very carefully, ok?' Max nodded, as her eyes connected with Mia's and started going little hazy. 'You're going to respond to Max again.' Mia told her, giving her a big, sweet smile, and as Abbey watched, Max's eyes went out of focus for a minute, before she smiled back and nodded. 'Ok, good. And the next time Alec talks to you, you will respond with more than one sentence. You won't brush him off.' Again her eyes went out of focus before she nodded. 'Ok, now we have that out of the way, what do you girls think about us having the day off?'

'I'm sorry Max, but I had to help' Abbey whispered in Max's ear before she turned back to Mia.

'Hey man, who's that with Max and Abbey?' Alec looked around until he found the three women, and after a look, turned back to Ben.

'I think that's one of the psy-ops chicks.' Ben raised an eyebrow in question, and Alec answered with a casual shrug of his shoulder. 'I spent some time there. She's a telecoercion specialist; can make people do things, forget things.'

'So what's she doing here? I mean psy-ops people don't usually come to mingle with the rest of us; they're afraid of us, considering most of us hate their guts.'

'True. Uh, I think she came in with Abbey, actually.' Ben nodded, and continued to watch the three girls. He noticed when the psy-ops girl leant over slightly to Max, and said something to her, and then Max nodded. 'That was weird.' He muttered, and Alec turned back to him, eyebrows raised in question.

'What was weird?'

'That psy-ops chick just leant towards Max and said something, and Max did this weird nod thing, I don't know…' He trailed off, and looked back at Alec, who had narrowed his eyes slightly.

'She did, did she? What are you playing at Abbey?' He muttered to himself, but when Ben started to ask him, he just shook his head and turned back to the game at hand.

Max started responding when the unit called her Max, although she was still rather stiff when talking to them. She didn't start conversations, and she still kept her part of the conversation to a minimum, but as a week passed, and then another, they all started to notice small signs of Max; a smile here, and quiet laugh there. But there was still something missing; her eyes were still the blank eyes of the Manticore mask. And unfortunately, the one person who would be able to put that sparkle back in her eyes was currently avoiding her. Since the day Mia had spoken to Max, Alec had barely said five words to her, excluding her designation. And so Mia's instruction went unheeded, much to Abbey's frustration. But any time she tried to bring the conversation around to Max, Alec was gone in a second, with something he had to do. Finally, one day about two weeks after the conversation, Abbey managed cornered Alec outside the gym.

'Alright buddy, what's going on?' she demanded, poking him in the chest at each word, emphasising her point. He gave her an annoyed look, and absently rubbed his chest.

'Uh, it's called the gym, Abbey; it's where people come to work out, exercise etcetera.' He said slowly, and earned a glare and a punch in the stomach for his efforts.

'You know what I'm talking about, mister. So don't play dumb with me. Now, why aren't you talking to Max?'

'Um, if I remember correctly, and I'm pretty sure I do, she stopped talking to me. I was simply following her lead. If she wanted to talk to me, she could have. On her own volition.' He added, eyebrow raised as he looked down at her. After a quick urge to look away, she cleared her throat.

'Don't know what you're talking about.' She said innocently.

'Yeah, like I'm gonna fall for that. The psy-ops chick? Do you know what Max'd do to you if she found out?'

'Yeah, well they way she's going, she never gonna care anyway. So I tried to help, give her a little push so she'd be a little bit more open towards us. Is that so bad? At least I'm not ignoring her!' She was on the verge of yelling now, and any guards or superiors could walk past and she wouldn't care.

'If you care to think about it, I stopped talking to Max the day the psy-ops chick had her little chat with her. I refuse to talk to her if it's not her talking, if it's just the psy-ops mind warp talking. So you have your little friend undo whatever she did, and then I'll talk to her, ok?' Without waiting for her answer he spun around and stalked into the gym, letting the doors bang behind him. Abbey stared at the doors for what seemed like an eternity, letting his words sink in. Finally, she let out a small smile. She hurried to find Mia, and Biggs. Both would be intricate in bringing her plan to life.

'Abbey, tell me again why we're down in the maternity ward at midnight?' Biggs asked for the hundredth time as they crept along the dark corridor that let to Manticore's idea of a nursery.

'I told you, I have a hunch, and I wanna see if I'm right.' She told him without looking back.

'Was your hunch that the maternity ward has babies in it? Cause if it was, I can tell you, you are spot on.' She sent him an exasperated look over her should as she quietly opened the door and checked for any guards. Apparently, though, the guards thought that since the babies were underground, and needed top security clearance for access, they didn't need actual guards. Idiots, she thought. She came to a stop and turned back to look at Biggs.

'I'm looking for one baby in particular. You remember Cece telling us about that conversation they heard between Renfro and some random a few months ago? About how disappointed she was that Max wasn't pregnant, and how much they wanted the baby made from her and Alec? Well, I'm thinking that since she knew she wasn't going to get it from the two of them, she probably just went straight ahead and made one herself.' She smiled at the look on his face; his jaw had gone slack and his eyes looked about ready to pop out of his head. It was almost comical.

'You… you think… 946! God, it never clicked before. All the babies; their designation comes from adding their parents, and then subtracting 1000 if the numbers if bigger than 1000, but anyway. Cece and I never figured out who 946 came from, cause she couldn't remember anyone else being pregnant. I always knew she looked familiar, but…'

'So I was right. 946, that's 452 and 494 together, if I'm not mistaken, which I rarely am.' She looked at him expectantly, and sighed when he gave her a blank look. 'Lead the way, Biggs.'

'Right, uh, this way.' He led her to the right and stopped about 15 metres down the corridor. They looked through the glass window, and saw five babies sleeping in a row. They were all identified with numbers, and at the far left, Abbey saw the one she wanted; 946. Biggs was right, she looked like her parents. She had brown hair that was already thick and slightly curly. She would be beautiful, and Abbey had a hunch that when she opened her eyes, they'd be hazel like her dad's.

'Bingo.' She whispered, shooting Biggs a smile.

'Hey, Alec! Man! WAIT UP WILL YOU!' Alec finally came to a stop and turned to look back at Biggs, who was running down the corridor towards him. 'Seriously, if someone calls you once, you stop. And don't even try to say you didn't hear me.' Alec didn't say anything; he just looked down at Biggs, a look of impatience on his face. Biggs seemed to pick up on this, so he continued quickly, 'Anyway, I thought you should know, Abbey and I were just down in the maternity ward, and well…' he trailed off, unsure how to say the next bit. Nothing he and Abbey had practiced sounded right to him, and now he wasn't sure telling Alec now was the best idea. But it's all you have, he thought. So, in true Biggs style, he decided to grin and bear it. 'Look, there's a baby down there, it's in the room with the babies from our unit, only Cece and I could never figure out who's it was, cause no one else was pregnant, and well, I guess we were always too preoccupied to try and use her barcode to figure it out, but Abbey… well, Abbey figured it out last night. Alec, she's got brown hair and hazel eyes and her designation's 946.' He let the information sink in, and watched Alec's eyes widen in realisation, and his jaw dropped, his reaction similar to Biggs' earlier.

'946? As in… 452 and 494? You mean… but Max and I… she was never… Renfro?' Biggs was able to decipher his non-sentences, and almost laughed. Almost. He wasn't in the mood to get a beating from Alec.

'Yeah, we think Renfro wanted your baby so badly that when she didn't get one the natural way, she just made one herself.'

'She… that sick bitch. Bad enough she forces us to have sex and get the girls pregnant, but when she doesn't get the baby she wants, she just takes our DNA and makes it herself? I have to see her… no, I have to tell Max first. No, not yet… shit!'

'Oh, by the way, Abbey wanted me to tell you that she spoke to Mia yesterday, and she undid whatever she did.' Biggs smiled innocently up at Alec, who nodded slowly, then turned and headed off. He turned back at the end of the corridor and looked back at Biggs.

'Thanks for telling me. And Biggs? These babies won't grow up here.' Biggs nodded before Alec turned around again and walked out of his sight. He went to find Abbey, to tell her it was done. If anything could get Alec talking to Max it was finding out they had a baby. And Alec would get Max talking. By morning, he calculated in his head, we'll have them both back to normal. He grinned to himself, before ducking into an open doorway as a guard walked passed. Yeah, he thought to himself, things will be back to normal very soon.

A/N: so, hope you liked it. Review, let me know what you thought. The next chapter will be up very soon, I'm just going over it.