It was late. Original Cindy had gone out to some place called Crash an hour or so ago, and had invited them both along, joking that they could sneak Little Max inside if they covered her face, but Aunt Max had said they were waiting for someone to come by, so OC had left.

Little Max sat on the couch, leafing through some old magazines. They had most of the pictures cut out. Aunt Max had fished them out, saying that she liked to cut out pictures from magazines as a young teenager because it was what normal girls did. Maxie liked reading the articles more than looking at the pictures, but she politely sat looking at them while Aunt Max took a shower.

"What're you looking at, kid?" asked a voice over her shoulder with interest.

Maxie shrieked and jumped, whirling around because the owner of the voice had entered the room without making any noise. It was a woman around Aunt Max's age, with blonde hair and pretty eyes.

"Who are you?" Little Max asked, frightened.

"Is that any way to talk to one of your many aunts?" said the woman teasingly, folding her arms in front of her.

"Are you Syl?" asked Max.

"Damn straight I am. Krit, where are you?"

A male voice called from the kitchen. "In here. I'm hungry."

"He always is," said Syl to Little Max, smiling.

"That- that was incredible. How did you do that?" babbled Little Max.

"Do what?"

"Come right up behind me without making any noise. Only my mama can do that- oh. Is it a family thing, Aunt Syl, ma'am?"

Syl raised an eyebrow. "If you like. So. You're Jace's daughter?"

"Yes, I am ten years old."

"What's your name?"

"Max Morales."

"Quiet, aren't you? Do you ever talk if you're not asked a question?"

"I'm supposed to be polite to adults, Aunt Syl. Mama says."

Syl grinned. "Typical Jace. At least she's been out of Manticore ten years."

"Your military school, right? Aunt Max said you and, um, Uncle Krit were in her class with Aunt Brin and Uncle Ben," said Max, pleased that she remembered the name of every sibling. Still, it was very odd to have to refer to all these people she'd never heard of as her aunt and uncles.

Syl looked nonplussed. "I... guess so. Krit, get in here. You can stop stuffing your face now. Our little sister Max has gotta eat too, you know."

"Max can get more," said Krit, walking into the living room and spotting Little Max on the couch. "Hey, you are...?"

"Max Morales, Uncle Krit, sir," answered Maxie. She remembered then to get up out of her seat like her mama had told her to, when adults she didn't know entered the room. She waved shyly.

Krit put an arm around Syl's shoulders. "This is Jace's kid? I can tell. She salute you when you walked into the room, Syl?"

Max didn't much like the way they made jokes about her mother like she wasn't even present. She said evenly, "Was my mama a good soldier at Manticore Military School?"

Krit laughed, but not nastily. "You ever meet our brother Ben, Max? He was always talking about good soldiers too. I remember-"

"Don't speak ill of the dead, Krit," said Aunt Max in as stern a voice as Maxie had heard her use, walking into the room. She was fully dressed, but her hair was wet.

Krit sat down next to Little Max and continued chatting with her like he'd known her all his life. "So, you inherit any of our little problems?"

"Problems?"

"Yeah. Seizures or-"

"Krit, shut up," said both the women, smacking him upside the head.

He shut up.

"What did you find out, Syl?" asked Max.

"Well, Krit and I swung by the airfield to find information on things being flown out of the country. Nada. There's nothing that sounds like it could be a cover for abducting Jace. So that's why we need to ask you- can you think of any enemies Jace had?"

She was talking to Little Max, who thought hard. "Mama didn't have many great friends. Yet she never mentioned enemies. Do you think that Manticore Military School abducted her?"

The three adults exchanged looks over Little Max's head.

"No..." said Aunt Max thoughtfully. "Not Manticore... we took them down years ago, when you were just a baby. It's gotta be someone who's gotten wind of the X5 project."

"We'd better be careful," said Krit seriously. "If they're powerful enough to take down an X5-"

"They could have killed her," mused Syl. "It's a possibility. Dead or alive, her genetic code is completely unique. Then she wouldn't have been any trouble."

Little Max's jaw dropped. "Someone could have killed my mama?" she asked shrilly.

Aunt Max gave Aunt Syl a not-in-front-of-the-kid look and sat down next to Maxie. "Max, don't panic."

"No!" yelled Max. "I want you to tell me right now- why would anyone want to kill my mother?"

"I don't think it's... Max, I think you should go to bed. It's past midnight."

Aunt Syl and Uncle Krit left the room and Aunt Max gave her niece an oversized shirt to change into. "I don't sleep," said Maxie stubbornly.

"Maybe not, but you're going to get upset if you keep listening to us talking. Now, TRY to sleep, aiight?" asked Aunt Max.

"Aiight," echoed Little Max. It sounded a little odd with her accent. Aunt Max left the room, turning off the light.

She lay there in silence, listening to her uncle and aunts talking in the kitchen. She could hear them perfectly.

"Nice going, Syl."

"Why d'you think Jace never told her about Manticore?"

"Oh, yeah, Krit. You saw how she flipped out when I mentioned her mother dying. How do you think she'd take the truth? 'I was created in a test tube and spent the first nineteen years of my life as a teenage transgenic killing machine-'"

"Be quiet, she'll hear you!"

Max's eyes widened and she ducked under the blankets on the sofa. She didn't want to listen any more.

The next few days passed without many events. Aunt Syl and Uncle Krit seemed ashamed and tried to make peace by visiting and staying with Max when her aunt went out mysteriously. They were teaching her how to play poker. Little Max was getting rather good at it.

Maxie was winning when her Aunt Max burst in on the fourth day of Little Max's stay. "I've got a lead at last. Max- is this your mother?" She handed Little Max a large computer printout that looked like a scene from a security video.

The picture showed a woman with dark hair being ushered from a van by two men. A man wearing glasses was walking ahead of them, talking into a mobile phone. They were heading toward a door with two more men who looked like security guards. She studied the picture intently.

"It's my mama!" cried Max in surprise. "I'm positive that's her!"

"Whoa, Jace grew up hot for a colonel's pet," remarked Uncle Krit. Aunt Syl elbowed him hard in the ribs.

"That's our first stop, then. But it's two days' journey from here..." mused Aunt Max, gazing at her niece.

"Leave her with Original Cindy," suggested Aunt Syl.

"Good idea. Let's move out. Meet back here in half an hour," said Aunt Max in military tones. Aunt Syl and Uncle Krit left abruptly, leaving their cards on the floor where the three of them had been playing.

"Aunt Max, I want to come. I have to see my mama," said Max decisively. She couldn't quite voice or comprehend the weak-kneed relief she was experiencing that her mother obviously hadn't been killed.

Aunt Max turned around from packing and gave her niece a rather catlike stare. "Are you crazy?" she asked quietly. "This place we're going is a government-run testing lab. It's going to be swarming with guards. The only people who'll have a hope of infiltrating it will be people with special training and abilities. People like me and Krit and Syl. You are gonna stay here with Original Cindy and let us handle this, OK?"

"But-"

"You'll see your mama in a few days, I promise," said Aunt Max.

Little Max sighed. At least she knew her mama wasn't dead- yet. But how would she be able to get through those next few days knowing that her mama was in some lab.

Her Aunt Max called up Original Cindy, who was cool with looking after Maxie. She heard a van pulling into the alley next to the building, heard Aunt Max hanging up on OC- and had an idea.

"Aunt Max, is it OK if I sleep in your room while you're away?" asked Little Max innocently.

"Sure. Now, where'd I put my sector pass?"

Little Max spied it lying on the counter and pocketed it. "Have you lost it, Aunt Max?"

"I don't lose things. But... I could've sworn I'd put it on the counter."

"I think I saw it on the bathroom sink, Aunt Max," suggested Max. "I'm gonna go and take a nap in your room."

"If you want..." said Aunt Max, giving her a curious look. She shrugged and gave Max a proper hug. "You be good for Original Cindy, boo."

"I will," said Little Max, watching Aunt Max leave the room. She quietly put the sector pass on the counter and slinked into Aunt Max's room.

There wasn't much time. She snatched Jace's sweatshirt off the bed, hugging it quickly and pulling it on. She fished a piece of paper and a pen out of a cardboard box by the bed and scribbled.

"Dear Original Cindy," she said as she scrawled the words. "This is Little Max. My aunt is too busy to write you a note, so she asked me to do it. She has decided to take me with her out of the city. Please do not call as the phone lines may be tapped. We will be back in a few days. Sincerely, Max Morales."

Little Max fished a coil of nylon rope from under the bed after she left the note on Aunt Max's pillow. She opened the window and looked down at the van parked in the alley. She tied one end of the rope around the window frame and tossed the rope out the window, watching it unfurl.

"I can't believe I'm doing this," muttered Little Max, tugging on the rope. It was secure.

She climbed out of the window and began to climb down the rope. It was easily one of the most frightening and dangerous things Max had ever done. Her small hands clung at the rope and she shook all the way down.

"I'm doing this for my mama," she told herself firmly, and felt her sneakers bump against the ground.

The back doors of the van were open. She started running almost silently across the gravel and managed to scramble into the back.

There were a lot of boxes and things in the back of the van. Through a screen behind the seat she could see Uncle Krit and Aunt Syl, waiting for Aunt Max to come.

The back door of the van was slammed. Aunt Max suddenly scrambled into the window seat, buckling her seatbelt.

"This is just like old times," said Aunt Max readily.

"Is Max all good?" asked Uncle Krit.

"Sweet kid," mused Aunt Syl.

"Yeah. I'm getting Jace back for her, I swear. This isn't gonna be Tinga all over again."

"We'll see," said Aunt Syl.

As Max sat silently in the back of the van, as the engine roared in her ears and she knew she was on the road again... she prayed. Mama, we're coming for you, she pleaded inside her head. Hold on.

Her Aunt Syl's words repeated inside Little Max's mind, though, until they lost all meaning.

"We'll see."

We'll see.

We'll see...

* * *

DISCLAIMER: 'Dark Angel' belongs to Fox and James Cameron. Not me. So don't sue.

NOTE: One reviewer asked, "... Max (Jace) is 10 right well you said Max (Guevara) was 20 when she opened the door shouldn't she be thirty?" I'm not sure if it was made certain, but as the main character is Little Max, when she estimates that Max Guevara is in her late twenties, Max G. is actually about twenty-nine or thirty, seeing as she was about nineteen or twenty when Little Max was actually born. Ya see, this is supposed to be a ten-year-old guessing. I hope that answers your question.

I'm predicting that there isn't gunna be much Joshua or Alec. 'Cause you see, I'm only up to 'Hit A Sista Back', so I've never seen them and can't really write a good characterisation of them. On a similar note, I'm sorry if my Krit and Syl characterisations aren't in character, but I've never seen them and have gotten my characterisations from fanfics. Feel free to point out problems to me and I'll try my best to fix them.

Thank you to all the people who've reviewed this. Expect the next chapter very soon!