Disclaimer: I don't own Dark Angel, but I'd like to, and it's the thought that counts, right? ;-)

Summary: Updates Mondays and Thursdays.

Doppelganger

Chapter Fourteen

The next morning, Alec was woken up by his cell phone vibrating on his bed stand. He glared at the offending piece of technology and rolled over, pulling his pillow over his head. It didn't work. He could still hear it vibrating. Damn his genetically enhanced hearing. Groaning, he reached over and grabbed the phone.

"Hello?"

"It's me," Max's voice said. She sounded way too awake, but the morning pissy-ness factor was right. Except she always sounded that way to Alec. "Get up."

"What happened to please, if you could?" Alec said as he flopped back onto the pillows and stared up at the ceiling. "And I don't have to get up for another hour, Ms. Sunshine."

"You have to get up now if you want to go to Joshua's and get back to Jam Pony in time for work."

Alec propped himself up on his elbow. "Why the hell am I going to Joshua's?"

"Because that's the safest place for Quip right now if one of us isn't with her," Max said, "She's wanted by Russian mobsters, remember?"

"Sort of hard to forget," Alec replied. He looked out into the living room; nothing was moving so he assumed that the kid was still asleep. Good, she needed it. "You really think Joshua's is better than Jam Pony?"

"I don't know, but at least I'll know she's with someone I trust," Max said. There was a pause. "And there's always a chance that this guy has someone at Jam Pony."

"Slim chance," Alec said. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood up in the same fluid motion. Barefoot, he padded over to the open doorway and leaned against the doorjamb. Quip was still sleeping. The tip of her mop-top blond head was showing, but the rest of her little body was buried beneath the covers, curled up on herself in a tight ball. "Look, Max, I love the big guy and everything, but I'm not sure Josh is exactly the best babysitter material."

"You left her with Normal yesterday, and you're complaining about Joshua?"

She had a point. Leaving Quip with Normal had been an unintentional form of mild torture for the kid, but she'd been through worse. A lot worse. "Yeah, but Normal doesn't try to eat acrylics or think that macaroni and cheese makes up the entire food pyramid."

"Joshua only tried that once, and the man is not a chef," Max said. She huffed, and Alec could imagine the glare on her face. "Seriously, Alec, if you haven't killed her yet, then Joshua shouldn't have any problems."

Alec scowled at the opposite wall. What was that supposed to mean? Of course he hadn't killed Quip, he wasn't a moron. He knew what to do for her…sorta. "Geez, Max, glad to know you trust me so much."

"She's a little girl, and you're you," Max said, "Sorry if the combination doesn't sound like a good one to me."

He glanced toward the couch. Quip was awake. Her sharp eyes were on him as she pushed the blankets off and sat up, kicking the covers farther down to the end of the couch.

"Joshua will probably like having company anyway," Alec said, suddenly not in the mood to argue any more. "I'll see you at work, Max."

"Later."

Alec flipped his phone closed and walked into the living room, his feet sticking on the cold floor. As he came toward her, Quip slipped off the edge of the couch.

"Who was that?" she asked, glancing at the phone.

"Max," Alec replied, "She said you annoyed the hell out of everyone at Jam Pony, so you're not allowed back."

Quip put her hands on her hips, looking a little too Max-ish for him at the moment. "Nuh-uh."

"Uh-huh," he said, indulging in a moment of childishness.

"No, she didn't." Quip must have decided that if he was going to act younger, she was going to act older.

"Damn, you caught me with your dazzling intuition," Alec said, smirking at his seven-year-old female copy. Hungry, he walked into the kitchen, Quip following behind him. "She just wants you to meet a friend of ours. His name's Joshua. He's Manticore too. You like bagels?" He snatched the almost empty bag of bagels from the counter and held it up.

"I think so," Quip said, "Who's Joshua?"

"He's a Manticore person. He's sort of…doggish." Alec gestured at his face, trying to explain but not knowing exactly how to put it. He stopped trying. "You'll see when we get there."

Quip nodded solemnly and scrambled up onto the counter. He noticed that she gritted her teeth when her side stretched. She started walking along the countertop, opening and peeking into cabinets. "Can I have syrup on the bagel?"

Alec opened the cabinet closest to him. He pulled out the syrup and set it down before reaching over and picking up the small, orange pill container from the ledge over the kitchen sink. Popping the cap open, he tapped out two white pills that he put beside the bottle of syrup. "If you take that medicine, then yeah, sure you can have syrup and chocolate milk and whatever else you want with your bagel."

"But I don't need them," Quip said. She sat down on the counter and glared at the pills. "It doesn't hurt."

Alec snorted. "Look, kiddo, you're not in Manticore anymore. No one's gonna yell at you for feeling pain, understand?"

Sweeping up the two pills, he walked over to Quip and held out a hand. She stared at him for a moment before looking down at his hand. Slowly, she extended her own hand in a fist. He flipped her hand over and gently pried her tiny, slender fingers open so he could drop the two pills into her palm.

"Take those, all right?" he said. While she looked down at the two pills with narrowed eyes, he ran her a cup of water. "I'm not trying to poison you, that's not my job." He set the cup down beside her before heading back over to the bag of bagels.

While he was fixing one of the bagels, he heard her quickly down the pills before jumping off the counter. Small bare feet made little noise as she came up beside him, the top of her head level with the countertop. She got up on her tiptoes and glanced at the bagels. "You're putting syrup on those, understand?"

"Sure thing, short-stack," Alex said, grinning to himself. Victory was his.

00000000000000000000000

"Look, Quip, don't freak out or anything when you see Josh, all right? He's a big, giant dog-man."

Quip looked up at him, annoyance quite clear on her face. "You've told me that about twenty times already."

They were walking down the sidewalk in Joshua's run-down neighborhood. There were multiple burned-out trash barrels, broken down cars and grungy people lining the streets. Neither Alec nor the kid gave any of it a second glance, and that seemed to speak volumes about how lousy their lives were to Alec. They were used to squalor and decay now. Maybe Quip would be better off in Canada if it meant she could get away from this city.

He glanced down at her. "If you run screaming in the other direction, I'm going to be pissed."

"Aleeec," Quip whined. She frowned, looking past the rim of the floppy grey hat she had insisted on wearing. Besides the hat, she was wearing jeans and a green t-shirt with a smattering of stars on it; it managed to make her look like the cute, innocent little kid that she wasn't. It was sort of frightening how easy it was to disguise a killing machine. "I'm not going to do that."

Alec held up his hands. "I'm just saying."

They crossed the street and trotted up the crumbling steps to Joshua's house. Alec glanced down at Quip and got a scowl in return. She wanted him to go ahead and quit worrying about her reaction, but he wasn't sure if he had prepared her enough for Joshua. He had tried to tell her about the seven foot tall dog-man mutant hybrid, but seriously, how was he supposed to explain that adequately?

Bracing himself for what he considered the inevitable, he knocked on the door and put his hands in his pockets. "Yo, dog-boy, you home?"

"One minute!" Joshua's voice called from somewhere inside the house, probably the living room. There was a lot of noise as Joshua put down art supplies and headed to the front door. A smirk crawled onto Alec's face as Quip slipped subtly behind him as the door was thrown open to reveal Joshua's enormous heights.

"Alec!" Joshua exclaimed, beaming a huge, welcoming smile.

Alec had to smile back; Joshua's moods were always infectious. "Hey, Josh, what's up?"

"Painting, many things, many Joshuas," the dog-man said, stepping back from the doorway. He grabbed Alec's arm and pulled him toward the house. "Show you everything, come."

Quip backed up as her shield was removed and flashed Alec a panicked look before Joshua noticed her. She froze, not moving a muscle. There was a moment of pause where she stared at Joshua and Joshua stared back at her. Joshua's eyes widened with visible panic.

"Joshua, this is—" Alec reached out to Joshua, already trying to calm him down, but Joshua stepped backward, colliding with the door. Letting out a strangled howl, Joshua covered his face and looked frantically at Alec through the slits between his fingers.

"Little girl? You brought little girl?" Joshua shook his head rapidly and disappeared into the house, slamming the door in their faces. "No, no, no screaming!"

Quip grabbed Alec's hand, and her grip wasn't loose; it felt like she was going to break his hand into pieces. He squeezed her hand back. "It's okay, all right?" He turned back to closed door and rapped his knuckles against the decaying wood, hoping Joshua hadn't fled to the basement or something. "Hey, Joshua, it's okay, man. This is Quip, she's Manticore too!"

There was a long pause, and then the door rattled and opened an inch. "Prove it!"

Alec looked down at Quip. The seven-year-old sighed before turning around. She pulled her jacket and shirt down from her barcode, exposing it so Joshua could see. The door opened slowly, carefully. Joshua peered down at the small barcode and then looked up at Alec.

"It's not a fake," Alec said.

"No, no fake," Joshua replied. He stepped back and opened the door wide open, now smiling uncertainly at Quip. "Come in."

Alec started to walk inside, his hands on Quip's shoulders. The X8 let him guide her into the house before she pulled away, looking around as if she needed to know all the escape routes. He vaguely remembered doing something similar the first time he had come here. She stayed close to him as he followed Joshua into the living room where he had his easel set up. There were paintings sitting around the room, a lot more than there had been the last time Alec had been there. He walked through the collection, wondering where he could fence the excess. Joshua needed to keep a large variety of paint and stuff, right?

"Newest Joshua," the transhuman said, motioning to the easel. It was a bright painting, mostly pinks and oranges with a few dashes of yellow. He looked down at Quip who looked like a three-year-old compared to the almost seven foot tall transgenic. She didn't even come up to his hips. "You like it?"

Quip looked at the painting and then back at Joshua, her expression showing something like a determination to not be afraid. "It looks nice. Like a flower."

Alec glanced at the painting again and then tilted his head to the side. Yeah, actually, it could look like a flower. If you threw the flower in a blender. Maybe.

Joshua nodded and patted the top of the easel. "Flowers nice." He glanced down, his head bobbing. "What's your name?"

"Quip," she said.

"She's my clone," Alec said, straightening up from where he was perusing some of the artwork. Joshua nodded, understanding that line of thought from having spent so much time in Manticore.

Quip shot a glare at Alec. "I am not a clone!"

"Fine, you're a midget-like, girly, kiddy version of me," Alec said, shrugging his shoulders. She looked like she wanted to stick her tongue out him but had decided the action was too childish. He turned toward Joshua who was, yet again, staring at Quip. "Could you keep an eye on her today, Josh? We're sort of in a bind here, and I have to be at work."

"Max at work too?" Joshua asked, somehow ripping his gaze away from Quip.

Alec nodded. "Yeah, we're both working. So, can you do it? All you have to do is give her some crayons and paper, and she'll be fine."

Quip scowled and put her hands on her hips. "You're not funny."

Alec snickered and ruffled her hair as he walked up to her. She shoved his hand away and moved toward the shelves of books on the nearby wall; out of the corner of her eyes, she kept a watch on Joshua. Paranoid little thing. He would've done the same thing.

"Where did tiny fella come from?" Joshua asked, pointing toward Quip.

"Showed up at my apartment on Monday night," Alec said, "She's sort of in trouble, but Logan thinks he's going to get her out of it and play the hero at the same time." He resituated his messenger bag on his shoulder. "She'll be in town for a few more days, then she's going to get a real white-picket-fence, cookies and cake family."

"Oh," Joshua said. He nodded. "A family is good. Need family."

"Yeah, whatever." Alec patted Joshua on the shoulder. "I'll be back around five. Just don't let her go running off into traffic or anything, and oh, yeah, feed her at lunch and all that stuff."

"We eat dinner together?" Joshua said, smiling hopefully.

Alec smirked. "Sure, buddy, we can do that. Mac and cheese?"

"Mac and cheese and beanie weenies!" Joshua echoed, giving Alec a thumbs up. "We eat dinner together, like family."

"Sure, big guy," Alec said. He turned toward the shelves to find Quip flipping through a book in her hands. It was an old, brown book that he probably could have taken to a black market for cash, but Joshua would not let him have any of them. They were Sandeman's so Joshua was sort of possessive over them. The one Quip was holding was titled The Complete Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Whoever that was. "What's that? Kiddy stories?"

Quip closed the book and held it to her chest. "No. I don't know what they are."

"Poems," Joshua said, "Nice words." He gestured towards the easel. "Pretty, like paintings."

Looking down at the book again, Quip ran her fingers over the glossy title. "I'll read them."

"You do that," Alec said. He glanced down at his watch. "Shit, I'm gonna be late." He swept Quip up with minor protests on her part and stood her on the seat of an arm chair so they were eye level. "Do me a favor, short stack, and just stay in the house today, all right?"

When she crossed her arms and just looked at him, he rubbed his hand over his mouth, trying to find the right things to say. "I know you can handle yourself and everything, but when organized crime units are after you, I've found it's best to lay low. Understand? Besides, if anything happened to you, Max would have my ass on a silver platter."

"Max wouldn't," Joshua said as he watched them. "Max is nice."

"Yeah, to you," Alec muttered. He turned his attention back to Quip. "So, can you do that for me? For my ass? It's a good ass, I promise, lots of women like it, and I'd really like to keep it where it is."

A half-smile darted across Quip's expression at the joke before she gave a grudging nod. "Fine. But you need to bring ice cream to dinner."

"Fair deal," he said, extending his hand to her. They shook on it, and Quip jumped down out of the seat of the chair. "Later guys!" Alec headed out of the living room and toward the door, mapping out a route in his mind that was the quickest way to Jam Pony. Normal was going to be pissed…

"Alec?"

He turned around and saw Quip standing in the hallway behind him. She was looking at her feet, her hands fidgeting in front of her.

"Yeah, squirt?"

"Be careful," she mumbled almost inaudibly.

Alec grinned at her. "Now where's the fun in that?" When she looked up at him with worried hazel eyes, he shook his head, sighing. "But, since you're so demanding, I guess I might try a little harder."

She smiled a little. "Good."