Author's Note: Yay! New chapter. This whole fic is being pieced together slowly. There will be a new chapter this weekend for this, yay! And probably 8 chapters in all.

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Jondy lay on her bed, in the cramped little flat in San Fransisco, staring up at the roof. She hadn't been back here since before her last Zack encounter. She'd come back here, to this flat, to find her home completely ransacked - everything was pulled out or moved - glasses and plates smashed, glass bottles of Trytophan and other meds smashed across the kitchen lino, her clothes strewned over the whole apartment, the electricity and phone wire cut. Mirrors smashed, mattress pulled off her bed.

It had taken her three days to sort out the flat, to make it habitable again. Gave her some time to just think, but not be completely idle with thoughts - usually these thoughts were focused around those few days in New York City and her big brother Ben.

But now, the flat was back to normal - Jondy had even bothered to fix the lock on the door; it had been broken since she moved in. In fact, in some ways, the whole flat wasn't right any more. It felt too clean and too new.

The paint on the roof was peeling, Jondy noticed, sitting up. Rain poured down, hitting the window. Rain.like that night in NYC.

Jondy leapt to her feet, padding out to the kitchen, needing to move around but not having anywhere to go; she had no job - the bar she used to work at was now closed and she hadn't gotten around to searching out for a new job in a different district. She had some cash left for rent and food, but there wasn't anywhere to go.

Anyways, those people who trashed her place might come back and this time, she was prepared - there were three guns hidden around the kitchen area alone.

She went to the fridge, in search of something to eat and eyed her calendar.how long had it been since Zack had spoken to her.just before he headed to Seattle for the third time.five months, give or take a week or two.

This wasn't right. Five months was too long - even if he wasn't sleeping with her, he checked in every two months. Rubbing her head, Jondy, slipped into her room. She'd left it here when she left last, but with them trashing the place, it might have gone.

She pulled a drawer out of her bureau and emptied the contents on the bed - papers, some money held together with a hair clasp, some fake I.D. cards and some random bullets.

Turning the empty drawer upside down, Jondy grinned; a piece of paper was stuck to it. Grabbing her pocket knife, she cut the paper away and turned it over.

Scrawled across it were seven uncommonly long pager numbers. The last three digits, were each of her siblings designations - Zack was paranoid that if someone else managed to get the list, they would've be able to work out the actual numbers.

Jondy sighed and grabbed a pen, scratching out Ben's pager and Brin's pager. Jondy doubted she'd ever talk to Ben again and Brin.Brin's reprogramming was still painful for everyone.

So she started dialling. She tried Tinga's number three times, but apparently, it no longer existed. Syl and Krit were both out of range. Zane's worked. Zack's didn't exist.

Jondy didn't try the last number on the list. Seattle was still part of a military state, after all.

*~*~*~*~*~* Jondy jerked awake, suddenly. Her window was open, rain pouring in. The spring in the window was old, and it usually opened by itself, unless she stuck a nail in the top. The back of her tank top was soaking wet.

It was 1 am. She'd crashed hard after watching some TV. Just threw everything back in the drawer and dumped it at the end of the bed, crawling under the covers and falling asleep. She hadn't slept this much since her last heat cycle.

Walking into the kitchen, in search of a dry pair of pyjamas and a nail for that damned window, Jondy heard her cell phone go off. Zack.

She raced into the bedroom, rifling through the pile of stuff on the end of her bed.

"Hello?"

"Jondy, is that you? It's Syl."

Jondy slumped in disappointment against the wall. "Hey, where are you? Have you heard from Zack?"

Silence. Jondy could hear muffled whispers over the phone. "Syl? What's the matter?"

"Hey, baby sister," Krit's voice came over the phone.

"Krit. What the hell is going on?" Jondy said, in her best CO voice.

"There's been." his voice faded off. "Some fatalities."

Jondy froze. "Who. When. Why. How."

"Tinga was recaptured and killed. We went to blow up Manticore, and we got the DNA labs, baby sister," Krit said, his voice slightly shaky. "They can't make any more X-soldiers without the DNA labs."

"Krit, who were the fatalities?" Jondy yelled, resisting the urge to throw her phone across the room.

"M-Maxie was KIA," Krit said softly. "And."

"And?" Jondy asked, closing her eyes.

"Zack is MIA at Manticore."

The phone slipped out of her hand, falling towards the bed, and shutting, hanging up on Krit and Syl in Seattle.

Jondy reached across to the night table, and jammed the window shut with her biro, curling up on her bed, willing sleep to overcome her.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

The harsh light of day. That sentence never made much sense to Jondy until now. She woke up, her whole body aching, her tank top clammy, to the sun pouring through the window, directly onto her face.

It had been raining three days straight, yet, today, the day she found out about Zack and Max and Tinga, it was beautifully sunny.

"Baby sister."

Jondy jumped, rolling over, to see Zane standing in the doorway. "Damnit, Zane, make noise," she snapped, flopping back onto her pillow, squeezing her eyes shut.

"I got the call straight after you, Jon. I know. Syl explained it all. There's only seven out of twelve left of us," Zane motioned for Jondy to wriggle over, and he lay down next to her.

"Seven? Eight, you mean," Jondy said, resting her head against his shoulder.

"No - you, me, Chi, Mish, Tawny, Syl and Krit," Zane said.

"And Ben,"

"Ben's dead too, Jon."

For some reason, Jondy relaxed when he said that. She still had nightmares about him and that family. The screaming kind of nightmare you can't escape until you've seen or experienced the absolute worst.

"How'd Ben die?" Jondy asked softly.

"Found outside Seattle with a broken neck," Zane sighed. "It was the work of an X5. Zack didn't tell me much."

"You saw Zack?"

"Yeah, straight after the EO message. He checked on me, Syl and Krit, then he had to help Tinga and Maxie out."

"EO message?" Eyes Only irritated Jondy for some reason. Usually because he always interrupted the punch line of whatever she was watching.

"Yeah, when we were compromised - you, me, Tinga and Krit, I think - our barcodes were shown. Remember?" Zane was sitting up now, looking concerned.

"I didn't see any messages concerning us from EO," Jondy said. "After I saw Zack, I went to NYC, with a detour of New Orleans."

Zane ran his hand through his hair. "And when you came back here, everything was the same?"

Jondy's eyes widened. "The whole place was trashed, electricity and phone lines cut."

"Damnit, you were luck, Jon. When Zack got out of Manticore, he."

"Excuse me?"

"Jeez, for the SIC, you sure have been out of the loop."

"I've been in NYC - with Ben." Jondy looked at her hands, and that's all Zane needed to know.

"It's okay, baby sister. We're gonna deal." He wrapped his arms around her, hugging her like none of her siblings had in years.

"We are," Jondy echoed, resting her head on his shoulder.