It Runs In The Family

Author: Cheryl W.

Disclaimer: I do not own any characters or any rights to Dark Angel or Supernatural, nor am I making any profit from this story.

Summary: Crossover with Dark Angel and Supernatural –AU. Dean, Sam and Alec's continuing adventures. No slash.

Author's Note: Thanks so much for the encouragement I was given on this new story arc!

SNDASNDASNDASNDASNDA

Chapter 10 – What Matters Most – part 2

SNDASNDASNDASNDASNDA

Sluggishly, Alec regained consciousness, was able to fight through the weights on his eyelids and see the world around him for the first time in what felt like years. The scenery wasn't worth the wait. Like the soldier he still was when it was a necessity, he instantly catalogued his findings: he was on the cold cement floor of a warehouse, metal workstations were a few yards in front of him, littered with discarded papers, pens, and tools that indicated that whoever once worked there wasn't coming back and he was alone. The last was the only good news of the day, settled the raging maelstrom in his gut. 'At least whatever crap I've gotten myself into, my brothers aren't being dragged into it this time,' his relief nearly putting an honest smile on his face.

As he sat up, he rated his head rush as impression. Feeling a spike of pain at the back of his neck, he reached his hand there, found a bandage covering his barcode, dreaded that it might mean another microscopic bomb was lodged at the base of his brain stem. Shifting, he found that one of his ankles was heavier than the other and a clank of metal heralded his every move. Looking to the limb, he grimaced at the sight of the ankle cuff, tracked the chain it was linked to a support beam in the middle of the sparse room.

Reaching down, he struggled to "break" the cuff loose. "Could really use your strength about now, Josh," he mumbled, remembered the way Joshua had so easily pulled the bars straight off the wall at Manticore. He tried not to think of White's group and their proclivity to cage him up like an animal, that chaining him like a dog and using an abandon warehouse was right up their alley. Sure, he had always known that, though White was dead, it didn't mean the cultist had given up their objective to wipe out Manticore's screwups. Namely, him. And he had yet to forgive himself for Dean getting caught in the crosshairs last go around with the cultist, was thanking God that this time wouldn't be a repeat performance. His brothers were safe. He had to believe that or he would go insane, flip his crap right then and there.

The screech of the warehouse's delivery door sliding open had him snapping his head to the right, tensed for whatever, whoever walked through the door. Geared himself up to play it cool, nonchalant, to give them his cocky smile and earn his namesake…both the smart aleck and the Winchester surname. But his composure slipped for a second, shocked to see a too familiar sandy haired, stocky military built man walk into the room. Then he shuffled his turbulent emotions to the rear of his mind, smiled up at his Manticore superior, at the man who had stolen Dean's DNA twenty years ago. "Colonel Lydecker," he cheerfully greeted as the former X-series commander drew to halt just outside his ankle chain's radius. "Alive and well. Here I thought I had missed my chance to speak at your funeral." Didn't want to remember how conflicted he had felt at learning of his commander's "death" nearly a year ago. The death of a man he hated….and had so wanted to earn his approval, a harsh superior and the only father figure he had ever had.

"Would you have said something nice?" Lydecker parried, a small smile playing on the corners of his lips.

"Oh you know me. Lying is one of my best skills," Alec cockily returned, his smile wider than Lydecker but his eyes dark with malice.

"Ranked only second to your impressive kills in the field," Lydecker shot back, his smile shifting to something more harsh as he crouched down to be eyelevel with his former soldier.

Disgust surged through Alec at Lydecker's cutting reference to his proficiency at assassination. He didn't want that skill to be part of him anymore, of the new life he had built, of the family he had been blessed with. Pulling on a smirk, he gave an 'ah shucks' wave of his hand to Lydecker as he replied, "Ah, you're going to make me blush," because showing weakness to an enemy, it was never the right move. Lydecker had taught him that.

Used to Alec's deflections, Lydecker quietly prodded, "Do your brothers know how easily you took lives?" And there was surprisingly no mockery, no sneer in the words, instead there was an intensity to know the answer.

Though it registered with Alec that Lydecker wasn't chastising him for forming a brotherhood with two Ordinaries, his jaw did clench at Lydecker's question, at his mention of his family. At the proof that the Colonel knew about Dean and Sam, his fear for his brothers' safety resurfaced, tainted his ability to maintain the pretense of detachment. "I'm really touched that you staged this reunion, I really am. But I'm on a time schedule, have a golf outing planned. And you know they never want to refund your money if you miss tee time," his tone not as blithe as he had wanted it to be, was too brittle with emotions, too rough with anger.

Lydecker studied his former soldier a moment before he drawled, "Still using the joking to get by. It's admirable, really. But if I remember correctly, you didn't smart mouth anyone in psy-ops after a few days down there."

Alec shrugged good-naturedly, kept his smirk intact as he explained, "It's hard to wisecrack when you're busy screaming."

Lydecker easily read the remembered agony and fear in Alec's eyes. It was the expressiveness in the X-series' eyes that had made him connect with them the most, the emotions that he read in them, that reminded him that these weren't just experiments he was dealing with, were human beings, children. 'My children,' he possessively claimed, had always had a strong, fatherly attachment for the X5 series children. 'Yeah and that soft spot almost got you killed and it's the reason you're up to your eyeballs in this newest operation.' He had never foreseen where his new alliance would lead him. But once the operational plan was outlined to him, he knew he couldn't go along with it. That, just like he had changed from being Max's pursuer to her protector, he felt that same need flare in him as soon as Alec's name was mentioned, that the X5's part in the plan was revealed.

'Kids are going to be the death of me for real. Maybe even this kid.' But that dark prediction didn't change his mind. 494, Alec, had been special to him. The kid had been the best of the best of his soldiers and had still managed to retain his stubborn will, his moral compass, his sense of humor even in light of all the horrors Manticore had visited on him. 'But most of all, he kept his heart protected, untainted,' and that was the greatest achievement of any Manticore's prodigies. That trait was also the reason he had objected to Alec being assigned the Berrisford mission. Hadn't wanted Alec forming an emotional attachment to the Berrisfords, to someone that might turn into a target, had wanted to shelter him, as strange as it sounded.

Detecting the start of fear in the green eyes at even his mention of his brothers, Lydecker felt a tightness in his chest loosen, was relieved that Alec hadn't changed that much since he knew him. Renfo hadn't managed to destroy the tender heart or extinguish the light in the kid's eyes. But amid the fear, he saw the threat in Alec's eyes, the protectiveness the X-series kid felt toward his brothers, toward the two men that, by all accounts, loved him as much as he loved them if the scene in the motel room was any small indication.

"I got you released from Psy-Ops, I vouched for you, promised that you would never exhibit the psychotic tendencies of 493," Lydecker stated, needed to begin establishing Alec's trust. Wondered if the kid would ever believe how hard it had been for him to watch Alec being escorted out of his room and taken to Psy-Ops. To stand in that room and hear his screams and know that his hands were tied, that he would need Renfo's approval to get him out of there. Renfo, Manticore's new director who had wanted the committee to believe that all his kids were anomalies like Ben, that 494, Alec, especially had to be executed to preserve the gene pool.

But he hadn't allowed her to gain that approval from committee, had used his political capital and cashed in some personal favors to get Alec freed from Psy-Ops. He had hated that it had taken six long months. Standing at the door to Psy-Ops when the kid walked out, he was so darn happy to see the kid smirk, to be greeted with, "If that's what goes for a vacation around here, next time I'll opt for a mission," that he had reached out, ruffled the kid's hair before he caught himself. Then he tried to cover up the break in his stern façade by slamming the kid against the wall, hissing in his face, "You make one wrong move, disobey one order like you did with the Berrisford mission, being brought back here is the best case scenario. Is that understood?" Never clarifying to 494 that the threat, it wasn't coming from him, was from Renfo, the committee, the machine that was Manticore.

"Yes sir," 494 had obediently replied, the light fading from his eyes as he morphed back into the soldier. And Lydecker had seen it then, the darkness that was part of the kid now, the touch of grief, of betrayal, of heartbreak and lost love. And he hated Renfo for that, that he hadn't been able to spare the kid the pain of emotions he himself knew only too well.

At Lydecker's claim, a memory resurfaced in Alec. Of pain, his throat raw from screaming, of voices, raised voices, Lydecker's voice.

SNDASNDASNDASN

"I want him out of here, now!"

Then a female voice, Renfo's, casually pointed out, "And I want him terminated. I guess we're both compromising."

"493 was an…"

"Anomaly, Deck?" Renfo smugly said. "Well we can't afford more anomalies. If 494 shows the slightest spike off the normal grid, I will put him down."

"Over my dead body."

"So sentimental. These aren't your children, they are Manticore's weapons. You might want to remember that. It will save you some heartbreak."

SNDASNDASNDASN

Alec shut down his memories, didn't care if Lydecker happened to save his life. He cared about his brothers, about protecting them, about getting out of here and getting back to them. It was all that mattered.

Snapping his fingers as if he had a "eureka" moment, Alec cheerfully announced, "Yeah and I wanted to send you a fruit basket for getting me out of there. Tell you what, you give me my cell phone, tell me the address here and I'll have it delivered today."

To Alec's surprise, Lydecker laughed at his comeback. Laughed as if he found him amusing instead of being insubordinate. Tilting his head, he studied Colonel Lydecker, wondered if the man he had once known so well had really managed to change. Max had said he was their ally, that he actually seemed to care about them but he wasn't buying it. Max was naïve, didn't know how deep Manticore played their games. 'I should know, I was one of their best operatives. I was the one Renfo assigned to befriend Max, get her trust, so she could lead us to Eyes Only. I betrayed her like a good little soldier, would still be merrily following Renfo's orders if Max hadn't taken down Manticore, hadn't made me see that, to Manticore, I was just a means to an end. A weapon to be destroyed because I was too valuable to get into enemy hands.'

"Glad to see Renfo didn't break you," Lydecker honestly said, smiling, pride shining in his eyes.

"She taught me to sell out anyone I had to so I could survive another day. You don't call that breaking me?" Alec darkly challenged, self hatred churning through him at all that he had done just to stay alive. He had accepted that, offering to kill other transgenics for White, it was just another part of that groveling.

"It was special conditioning," Lydecker bluntly stated, knew that, as much willpower as Alec always demonstrated, it wasn't enough to counter Manticore's manipulations. "They started the treatments while you were in Psy-Ops. They wanted you to follow any command they gave, unemotionally. Would purge your memories if they deemed it necessary, if they thought the memories would hinder any of your future missions or proclivity to obey." He watched as all color drained from Alec's features, knew that the kid had had no idea what was being initiated in him during his time in Psy-Ops. 'Any more than I did,' he bitterly admitted, had not had intel during that time to suggest that 494 had been transferred to a special program, Renfo's special program.

An arctic cold spike of fear and dread shafted through Alec. "You mean there are really things I did that I don't remember?" Because the things he did remember? They were horrific enough. He had once told Max, 'You think life was rough when we were ten? Take it from me, later it got a whole lot worse. But you did what you had to do. Then you tried to forget and when you couldn't forget, they had ways of making you not care.' Could it be that they even had ways of making him forget? 'Am I a greater monster than I even know? Did I do something that even Dean and Sam won't forgive me for?'

"It was their end game, to have the perfect, subservient, unemotional soldier. And it still is," Lydecker revealed, knew that, as much as his goal had been to create the perfect soldier, he never wanted them to be without the ability to think for themselves, to use their initiative, their minds. Had never sought to taint their souls, eliminate their hearts and to have them become robots to blindly do the bidding of their masters.

"And that's where you come into the scene," Alec sneered, could see Lydecker for what he was now. A man that had no allegiance, had only his need to continue his experiments, to have his prodigy respected. "The original puppet master back to pull the strings. To try and pull my strings." Letting that tension fall away from him, Alec leaned back and rested his hands on the floor behind him, causally drawled, "Sorry, you're going to have to find another lab rat, Colonel. My loyalties have switched." 'And I don't mean to the transgentics in TC. My loyalty is to my brothers. But Lydecker doesn't need to know that. Ever.' "So do your worst," he taunted, smile wide and the challenge in his eyes bolder than he had ever dared to level at his commander before. But Lydecker didn't rail at his boldness…instead there was sympathy in his eyes and uneasy in his gestures.

Looking away from Alec, Lydecker exhaled, ran his hands nervously over his lips. Knew that, once he told Alec the truth, there would be no turning back, no retreating, no covering up what he had done. Like his agreement to assist Max in her plans to destroy Manticore, this was yet another all-or-nothing scenario. Meeting Alec's eyes again, seeing the life in them, remembering how proud he had always been of the boy, he knew that he had to follow through on his plans. Regardless of what Alec might think about him, he did know how to protect his family.

Lydecker's silence grated against Alec's remaining nerves, made him abandon his faux relaxed pose and sit up, wait for his former commander to speak. But he wasn't prepared for Lydecker's announcement.

"One of Manticore's smaller operations, tasked with "improving" the X series solders, is now being funded and run by a private corporation," Lydecker revealed, watched Alec stiffen at the news that some of Manticore's operations were back in production. "But they haven't gotten the results they wanted. They have heightened some areas of the X series soldiers but discipline has been an issue. Once "initiated" the soldiers perform their tasks, yes, but they kill indiscriminately, seem to relish the taking of lives. Will eliminate their target but will also take out any innocents they come across."

"This is fascinating but what makes you think that I'm the key to perfecting your line of assassin soldiers?" Alec challenged, hated that there might be a list of people that he had killed that he didn't even know about. That he hadn't been trying to atone for their deaths. That more truly innocent lives might be laid at his door other than Rachel's.

Lydecker's words came out thick and low. "You're not the key, Alec."

Alec tilted his head in confusion, knew that he should be putting things together, making sense of this but couldn't. Before he could even formulate a question, Lydecker gave him his answer, an answer that made him feel violently ill.

Holding Alec's gaze, Lydecker said, "They don't believe that the answers lie with the clones. Instead, they think they are coded in the original DNA. And since Max destroyed the original DNA samples and it was Manticore's practice to kill all the DNA donors …they sought for a pure source of the DNA once used. And a few months ago, they found out that one of the DNA donors was still alive."

'Dean!' Alec's panicked mind screamed, barely able to comprehend how quickly the tables had turned on him, how one second it was only his life in jeopardy and now it was his older brother's life that was hanging in the balance. That, though he had begun to accept the real possibility that he could become that cold blooded assassin under more of Manticore's further tutoring, he would never, ever allow his brothers to be subjected to Manticore's heartless, sadistic experimentations. "Over my dead body," he growled, didn't realize it was aloud even as he moved, pounced forward, swept his leg out, nearly moved the building's support beam as he yanked on the chain.

Too late Lydecker realized that he had misjudged Alec's skills, that he had not properly taken into account how badly the transgenic would react to his news, knew that Alec was going to exceed the radius of the chain. Trying to scramble backwards, he crashed to the ground when Alec's leg swept his feet from under him. And then his ankle was gripped and he was dragged across the floor, soon found a hand crushing his windpipe and an enraged Alec snarling down at him.

"Where are my brothers?" Alec demanded, slammed Lydecker's head against the cement floor as his fingers tightened indiscriminately around his former commander's throat. His gut telling him that, if Dean was in trouble, Sam was too. That to get to Dean, they would have had to go through Sam. And they had already made their move on Dean, he was certain of it. Lydecker never offered a threat he didn't carry out, didn't bluff, ever, or telegraphed a move that wasn't already 98% already in motion.

Lydecker tried to pry loose the hand that strangled him but his strength was feeble against the transgenic's. Read unchecked fear and desperation, hatred and pain in 494s eyes and it told him that causing his death? Alec would relish it. And it wasn't about payback for all the pain and torture and training he had inflicted on the young clone for twenty years. No, it would solely be reprisal for his transgression of threatening his DNA donor, his brother, his family. Winning Alec's trust was going to be even harder for him than winning Max's had been. 'That's because Alec knows you better than Max ever did. Has ten years more intel on you, remembers that it was you who sent him out to kill his first target. Who punished him for his failures.'

"Tell me where they are or I'll snap your neck, just like you taught me to," Alec hissed, remembering the first man he had killed in that fashion, thought it poetic justice if Lydecker would be his last.

"Here," Lydecker wheezed out against constricting pressure, still vainly trying to dislodge Alec's grip.

"They're here?" Alec demanded, giving Lydecker a shake, needing to be reassured that he was being tricked, played.

Oxygen starved, Lydecker simply nodded, hoped the earnestness in his eyes said what words he couldn't.

Loosening his grip, Alec searched Lydecker with his other hand, confiscated a gun and the keys to the cuffs. One handedly, he unlocked the ankle cuff and then he stood up, pulled Lydecker to his feet as if he were a wayward child under his care. "Take me to my brothers," he ordered, cocking the gun and leveling it at Lydecker's skull.

As untenable as his situation seemed, Lydecker knew it would only get worse if he didn't explain things, defend himself while Alec let him alive to do so. "There are some things you have to hear first," he began, hands raised to show himself submissive.

Alec spun Lydecker around, gave him a shove forward. "The only thing I want from you is directions." Tried to quiet the little voice in his head that told him he should hear what Lydecker had to say, to know as much as he could but the apprehension in his gut made thinking of anything but getting to his brothers nearly impossible.

"Only one of your brothers is here, Alec," Lydecker bluntly announced, had to get that dismal fact out before Alec's hope soared too high.

That statement cut through Alec, had him spinning Lydecker around and slamming him against the nearest support beam. His forearm pinned against Lydecker's throat and the gun jammed into the man's gut, he glared down at Lydecker, "Where is my other brother? Is he safe?" He didn't even bother to ask which of his brothers Lydecker had been referring to, knew it didn't matter because, with his family, they were a package deal.

If one of them was in danger, they were all in danger. And if one was taken from them? Then they would all be lost. Dean's close call with the hell hounds had shown him that. Had proven that, yes, there was weakness in loving someone as strongly as he loved his brothers, as they loved him, but there was also strength in that bond as well. Strength that was unpredictable, beat the greatest of odds, that, even now, gave him the conviction to vow that, no matter what he had to do, he would be reunited with his brothers, both of them.

SNDASNDASNDA

TBC

SNDASNDASNDA

Have a great day! And for those in the US, happy Memorial Day! I want to send out a thank you for the service of all our soldiers around the world and throughout our history!

Cheryl W.

6