"Float Like A Butterfly"
Chapter 12: Morning After
by: Mochaije

Disclaimer: I do not own Dark Angel or its characters. Other than that, the story and characters are mine.
Summary: Max wakes up in the wrong bed; Manticore's broke and finds a disturbing way to rid themselves of the reason they exist.
Rating: PG 13

Scott's POV

I sit up and rub my eyes, my head feeling like glass, my stomach turning--I'm hungover and not wearing pants. The second part of that is more disturbing than the first, and I grab my boxers and jeans off the floor and put them on, getting up slowly, feeling sick as hell. My aspirin bottle waits for me, wanting to help me get rid of my post-drunkeness. I open the door and hear a female grunt from behind me, and I turn. My vision's a little fuzzy because I didn't put my contacts in, but I can see the probably pretty brunnette snap out of a dream state and realize where she is.

"Oh. my. God." Oh my God indeed--it's Max. She sits up, clutching a sheet at her collarbone to cover herself as she grabs her clothes off the floor and puts them on clumsily with one hand.

"Max, I--"

"I think I was drunk too." The sheet is thrown off and she stands up, fully dressed, pushing her hair out her face with one hand and looking at me. "Please don't tell me that what I hope didn't happen happened."

"I won't tell you then." I open up my dresser and grab a shirt and my contact lense box. She notices the lenses and doesn't say anything.

"Look, let's just forget this ever, ever happened." Max tries to brush by me and leave but I grab her wrist. Her eyes are icy and disgusted and she glares at me with them, trying to free herself from my hand. "Let go of me," she says in a threatening tone.

"Y'know, you look about ten times as disgusted as I do," I tell her, not giving up. Okay, it's pretty bad that the whole sleeping together thing wasn't decided upon when we were thinking clearly, but I'm not pissed off that it happened like she is, and Max tries to pry my hand off her wrist with her other hand. I let go and she snatches her hand away.

"Just stay the hell away from me."

Max's POV

Why do I feel sick? I've always liked Scott--he's handsome, he's my friend, and unlike me he's not homeless. Oh yeah, I was drunk at the time and now I'm hungover, that could be why I'm feeling ill. I try to forget about last night and remember the other six days... On the phone with Sam Carr... Appointment... 10:15 AM... Fuck! I break into a run towards the hospital.

I walk into the emergency department, because I can't find the outpatient one. An ambulance roars and squeals behind me and I blur out of the way before the stretcher hits me. Stupid, stupid me. I shouldn't be showing off my talents in public like that. Recovering, I give the young girl on the stretcher a hopeful smile when she looks at me and continue on my way. She must be about seven or so... Blood everywhere, only her eyes visible beneath the tube keep her lungs open and the nurse squeezing the blue thing attatched to it--what are those called again?--and bandages. The elevator button bends to my will before I reach it and by the time I do, it's open.

"Floor six," I tell the older woman standing near the buttons. She doesn't hear me so I use some mental force on that button's sorry ass and lean against the wall of the elevator box. I probably shouldn't, mind--the place is a pit, stains on the walls and junk on the floor. I pull my unwashed hair out of my face with one hand and stride out of the elevator when it hits my floor.

Sam greets me at the door of his office and informs me that I'm two and a half minutes late. The apologetic smile that I put on my face is fake and he knows it as he sits me down in a small cubicle and preps my arm.

"What am I here for, anyway? I sorta blacked out during my last seizure and forgot what I did... I just remembered calling you about twenty minutes ago."

"You called and said that your Progeria had completely cleared up, asked for a blood test--Your veins are really hard to find," he says in frustration, tying the yellow rubber bands a little tighter. It hurts but it's necessary, and I tell him that Manticore did that to avoid having me poisoned. We keep our voices low and he finally finds a vein, shoves a needle in there.

"Anyway, you wanted to see where your Progeria was at." The vial is replaced. "Just a little longer. I need three of these." He finshes and comments that I've got no wrinkles or grey hairs at all, then takes a long, hard look at the vial of blood. "It's going to be hard to find the Progeria with all of this alchohol in your system."

I blush. "I think I got drunk last night."

"I think the correct term is really, really drunk. Look, I'll call Logan's place when I get the results from this. You can go." I thank him and leave.

-----

Knock knock knock. Hearing no noises inside the penthouse, I pull two bobby pins from my coat pocket and pick the door. It swings wide and Logan rushes over.

"'Bout time," he whines. "I must've paged you ten times last night."

"Oh, really." My voice is a drawl as I try to remember if my pager is even still attatched to my clothes. Oh God, I hope Logan didn't go to the Crash last night... Wait, why do I care? We're just friends. He walks over to his computer room and motions for me to follow when I don't. We assume our regular computer positions--me leaning on the desk with one hand, him sitting. A video window pops up, my clone's face looking at us, the video's play button blinking.

"I got some news on Manticore. Turns out we burned them bad, and they've decided to systematically murder all of their subjects, and then burn Manticore to the ground. See." The mouse cursor moves over to the play button and my X7 self turns away from the camera and over to the tree she's standing beside. Decked out in overalls and a t-shirt with hair growing out a bit is not the way I'd imagine genetically enhanced folk to be dressed. There's an orchard or something around her, but she's alone except for the now unhidden camera.

She reaches up and grabs at a handful of berries dangling from the tree with both hands. The berries pop at her touch and she shrieks in pain. The image zooms at this point and I can see that the skin on her hands is trying to get away from the berry juice, and pulling itself away in curling strips, revealing raw veins and bone. The blood flows from her hands as she screams, and I lean over to turn the sound down from it's already low position. The skin continues peeling up her arms and the video ends, going back to the picture of her face.

"There must have been a quicker way," I breathe. "Blowing the place up, something--"

"This is Manticore, Max. Breeding ground for cures and diseases, not just you guys." He looks at me and I back away slightly, not hovering over him any more.

"How many are dead so far?" I ask, trying to be unmoved. That's me they killed. My genes, my blood. My designation. An eight-year-old child, left out in an orchard to peel and bleed to death just because Manticore felt defeated. The sickness in my stomach grows--I did this. The group of us destroying that lab did this. We're responsible.

"Not sure. I was going to suggest bombing the field but--"

"Eyes Only had better alert the public about the location of this place. I've gotta get to Gilette," I monotone.

"I thought you'd have to kill me if I did that." He looks right at me, as if the plan forming in my head is completely and totally ridiculous.

"Just do it. And book me a seat on the first bus to leave for Wyoming in the morning. What's the weather report for the next week for Gilette?" I feel a little wierd ordering him around, but I'll get over it. It's not like we're together any more. Sigh...

"Blizzards. The entire state is pretty much shut down for a few days... Might be difficult getting in there." Hah, blizzard. Getting around in the snow near Manticore is dead-easy, I'll just wear white.

"I'll get that covered," I explain. "All it takes is the bus to break down near a forest and I'll be all set. Book me under Max Guevera, by the way..."

"Are you kidding me? Manticore will be on that in a second, and there'll be special ops everywhere. 'Hmm, wonder what Max Guevera is doing in Gilette, Wyoming... Whatever could she be doing there...'" Logan says the last part in a granny-like, english accent, trying to ease the downer mood of the conversation. I smile weakly.

"Good. The more the merrier. I want Manticore to know I'm headed there... Just don't broadcast 'til I call you." The look on his face says he wants to say something and he avoids it until I get up to leave.

"Have fun with Scott last night?"

-----

Scott's POV

"You're bullshitting me," I tell Max, taking a gulp of my cheap beer. We're at the Crash... It must be ten o'clock or something. A 112 song comes on as Max stirs her float... It's "Dance With Me" or something. They play a lot of that music here, I guess. She looks more uneasy around me than she did the other day. Wonder why.

"I bullshit you not. Wow, they're really cheap on the clumpy ice cream tonight." It's funny that she tries to change the subject even after she brings it up... Max used to do that back in the day. Bring something up and then bring something else up when it went from a funny story to an uncomfortable one.

"He was seriously here last night?" She nods. "So, what did he say?"

"We were kissing outside." Her attempt at hiding her flushed cheeks behind her straw is pretty futile.

"Are you serious?" I laugh.

"And then, you know what? Like, oh my God, you will never, ever believe this! We went to your place and slept together," she says sarcastically. I chuckle and we're both quiet for a few moments. "So..."

"So."

"Manticore made berries that makes your skin peel. And now they make people pick them. So we're going to go and set free the Manticore kids that they're trying to kill because they're out of luck with new projects since we rigged the lab with bombs. That okay with you?" I take a second to process what she just said. Making their skin peel off? Fuck... I notice that I let her attempt at changing the conversation go by unnoticed.

"Yeah, I'm fine with that. Do I get to be the sexy, heavily-armed Manticore guy who fake-tracks-you-down-and-says-that-he-killed-you and ends up saving your ass?" Max sighs with a giggle and says I can be the clown if I want. "So, what are we waiting for?"

"There's a small Manticore headquarters office-type thing about two blocks from here. You turn yourself in from your latest mission--err, kidnapping--and they put you on bus 225 for Gilette, I hope, first thing in the morning--I told Logan to get me tickets for that one." She gets up to leave suddenly and I stand as well. Sighing, she tries to walk past me.

"You have somewhere to crash tonight?" She still avoids me but eventually shrugs. "You could sleep at my place."

"I'd better not," Max says awkwardly.

"What are the choices? Asha's got Manticore on her ass, I doubt Logan's impressed..." She screws up her face like she's about to give a witty retort.

"For one, I can more than handle Manticore and for another, like I give a damn what the fuck Logan thinks. I'll stay with Ben--"

"Which is so conveinent because Ben left town with a note pegged to your bike and stased the U-Haul in the underground parking lot at Caption Eyes Only's?" I've got her there and the look on the face shows that she knows it. Shrugging but not looking at me, she puts her thumbs through her belt loops and looks pretty defeated.

"I hope you have a couch."

The walk to my apartment is long and quiet, except for occaisonal shots of "get a car" and "well, maybe you should get an apartment". Max walks with her arms folded across her chest the entire way, huffing a sigh into the cold, December air every few minutes or so. We get to my place about half an hour after we leave. Max takes off her coat as soon as we get in and lies down on the couch, pulling the blanket folded over the top of it onto her and shuffling herself a little bit, closes her eyes with a sigh. I think she can tell that I'm about to to say something, because--

"Leave me alone, I am tired, and I am confused, and I have to go back to Manticore in the morning and I need to set up the entire plan in my sleep, so go away."

"How witty." I go into the kitchen, which is just a few strides from my couch and TV, make myself some toast. She grunts, tells me to keep it down as I plunk myself down on the couch, on a part of the third cushion that her legs aren't occupying.

"Do you mind?" Her curls bob slightly as she sits up suddenly, glaring. I shake my head, stuffing my face with the peanut butter toast I just made. "I mean it, I need some sleep, and you need to go down and sign back into Manticore before they pronounce you legally dead and give you a gravestone and you screw over a few hundred kids."

"I'll get over it," I tell her, wiping a little bit of peanut from the corner of my mouth with my tongue. Max is just pissed because there's someone in the world more stubborn than she. "And besides, I don't sleep, I'll go later." I feel her eyes on me and I turn to look at her, smacking loudly on my burnt toast, swallowing the piece I bit off and putting the rest of it on the coffee table.

"You're really fucking annoying." There's no malice to her words and she puts a hand on the back of my neck, pulling me to her and kissing me suddenly, full on the lips. I put my hands on her face to pull her closer to me, not resisting. Her lips part eagerly for me as we entangle our hands in each other's hair and she pulls me down towards the couch.

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CHAPTER THIRTEEN PREVIEW: TOO LATE AND TOO BAD

"Don't know what you're talking about, Max," Logan says, still slowly backing away. "Squealing to who?"

"To Manticore," I practically spit. We're almost at the window. If I shot him now, he'd freefall from twenty-six stories up. The phone cuts through the tension and I run over and grab it. "Hello?"

"Logan's in a sewer tied to a chair. He says.. He says that you guys found Lydecker here once." It's Scott.

"Yeah, guess what, Logan's been telling Manticore where we've been--"

"Just get--"

"Yeah, I'll be there in a--" A knife plunges into my back and a firm hand grabs my arm, and I drop the phone, trying to get out of his hold. He's too strong... Muttering something... And I can hear Scott's voice on the phone a few feet from me, yelling my name as I struggle for air and the world fades to black, and a loud crashing noise interrupts...

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AUTHOR NOTE

Read and review!! I need some opinions on this new storyline... Wow, anyone else watch MITM last night? Finally, a real effing plot! Can't wait to see what White is... I watched it on tape as well and you can definitely hear "Thank you for calling" during the Max vs. Goons sequence. Interesting--okay, and that's where I got the title for next week's chapter. :)