Chapter 8: Just Being
by: Mochaije
Disclaimer: I do not own Dark Angel or its characters. Other than that, the story and characters are mine. No spoilers included because my story took such a left turn from the show's real theme.
Summary: Virus bitch goin' down! After "Medium is the Message".
Rating: PG 13
A/N: Saved for the end of this chapter... Just because it's the end and my A/N is special this time around or something.
Hailey murdered her. My sister lay dead at my feet because Hailey had whacked her without emotion, without guilt. Carefully, I picked up Brin's frozen, lifeless body and carted her off, one of my arms under her knees and the other under her neck. I walked for a few blocks, restraining my tears, until I hit a cemetery. An X5 deserved a proper burial at any cost.
Despite the frigid temperature, there was a funeral about to begin. They were setting up the aparatus to lower the coffin into the grave when I arrived. As cautiously as I had picked her up, I set Brin down near a tree where she wouldn't be seen and strode over to the open crypt, the creepy graveyard mist swirling around my legs.
"The church is on fire!" I yelled frantically. The men, all middle-aged trailer folk, looked over and rolled their eyes. "It's a kitchen fire! Hurry before the entire place goes up in flames! Go!" The dropped their shovels and ran away. I carried Brin to the crypt, removed the aparatus, and slowly set her inside the grave--it was only a few feet deep, oddly enough. Must've been someone else buried under there.
"Go to the high place, Brin," I whispered, blinking back tears. Another one of us was dead and gone. Who was alive now? Me, Zane, Zack, Alec, Jace, Jondy... If they're even still living. Ben, Brin, Tinga, Eva... I'd never see their smiling faces again. The grass crinkled behind me as Alec squatted down, putting a hand on my shoulder, not seeing Brin's body.
"What a place to angst about you and Logan," he smirked, finally seeing my sister. "Um, she looks a little... Dead."
"We aren't like that," I corrected him, choking on tears. "And she's one of my Manticore sisters. I found her in an alley."
"Good news for me and Asha then, huh?"
I wiped my eyes with the back of my gloved hand. "She didn't write down your number after the mermaid thing, sorry to break your sarcastic little heart."
"Well, if the whole me and her thing doesn't work out, she's always got Logan." I bit my lip when he said that.
"Yeah. Logan."
He took his hand off my shoulder and we both stood, looking down at the grave, ignoring the panicked yelling from the church. Silently, we grabbed shovels and covered Brin with dirt until her grave was filled.
"It's not fair. It's like, we've all got to die and we can't choose when or how or why."
"I want to die when I'm really old. In my sleep," he softly observed. I could see that Brin's death was getting to him.
"It's just... Scary. One second you're breathing, seeing, hearing, knowing, feeling, just being, and then you're not. Every time something like this happens I just shove it to the back of my mind... I hate thinking about things I know so little about. I don't know what'll happen after my body stops working and it scares the shit out of me."
"And then there's the whole Logan thing," he put in, trying to lighten my mood without success.
"We're not like that. This is serious."
"What? Between you and Logan?" He smirked, not getting the gist that I was upset.
"Alec?"
"Yeah, Max?" I stared at him for a second before looking away.
"Knock it off." I leaned my tired head against his shoulder and stared, ever oblivious to the scene behind us. Tomorrow we would face a threatening new world, with new challenges and the same ol' bad guy. From my current point of view, it didn't look like I was ever going to get Manticore off my tail, that they were always going to be the big bad and yet, I was always one step ahead of them. And forever dragging my siblings behind me. Looks like Brin was the latest one to trip.
Could I go on if everyone around me was taken away so suddenly? No. Asha, as much as I don't like her, is a part of the unspoken, unbonded group. Joshua and Alec remind me that having this handicap is a precious blessing, albeit a curse. My boo keeps me real.
And Logan keeps me one step ahead. Forever and always. Even if we're not 'like that', he's always watching out to make sure I'm not the the next one that White gets to cross off of his little checklist. Hopefully that won't happen until White's been crossed off my own personal hit list.
Alec put his arm around me and we kept looking aimlessly, just being for a moment. Not speaking, not thinking about speaking. We were more than human, but not by much. The knowledge that we were better and yet worse all at once kept us from making a single sound. Perfectly imperfect human weapons, independent, quirky, and able to love... We'd failed and succeeded Manticore so many times that neither of us bothered to count. And so, we stood still. Just breathing. Just Zack's heart beating in my chest, Alec's beating in his own. Just living.
Just being...
THE END
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I wrote this over a very long period of time because I couldn't figure out what to do with it; end it, continue, do a sequel. It ends here. So, let me know what you thought, should I write a sequel or something?
