Chapter 3

Old Friends

"Anything?" Max rested her hands on the back of Logan's chair as he stared into the computer screen. On it were photos from every computer database in the country. As she tried to decipher just how he was going to find Anastasia like this, the smell of his shampoo reminded her that it wasn't safe for them to be standing this close.

"No, this would be a lot easier if we had a more recent picture - but we work with what we've got right?" Logan's tone was plaintive had it had been since she'd arrived. As he spoke he didn't turn away from his computers, trying to remain professional by ignoring how Max's presence was distracting him. But it didn't serve much of a purpose as she had easily seen him tense at the sound of her voice. Feeling her step back away from him only increased is torment and not for the first time he mentally cursed at Lydecker and everyone else from Manticore who had died on him before they had a chance to get rid of this virus.

In the living room Alec watched Max and Logan with some of his usual cynicism, not believing how miserably those two were failing at looking nonchalant and friendly. In his opinion an Elephant could've broken down the door with more subtlety. In his own way he felt bad for them, but how could anyone not feel sorry for two people so obviously in love and so heart-wrenchingly apart? In comparison to their circumstances Romeo and Juliet's relationship had been a field day. Suddenly it occurred to Alec that being around Logan too much was beginning to make him a sap, shaking it off he got up and decided to interrupt the morose little scene. "Hey, if you need a more recent picture maybe Max and I can dig around Joshua's place a little."

"Yeah, sure." Logan looked at Alec with a raised eyebrow and the slightest bit of hostility. Now waiting for Max to answer Alec handed her jacket to her and led her out the door.

"What the hell was that about?" Alec only rolled his eyes at Max's angry words.

"Let's just say that watching you two was making me sick - I can listen to Puccini if I want a little anguish in my life." For that comment, Alec just narrowly ducked a smack in the head.

"Just shut up and get moving."

***

Sitting on the edge on the bed in his guestroom, Ames White brushed a strand of black hair off of her face as Anastasia slept. With a chill he finally came to grips with the fact that this was really her. He had ran the blood work, not the thorough DNA tests the agency used, just enough to certify that she wasn't a Manticore imitation or a clone. It wasn't something he wanted to believe, and everything from his eyes to his brain told him that it was a trick of some sort. How else could she still be so young? The logical part of him reminded him that the conclave aged gracefully, he himself looked closer to nearly thirty then nearly forty, but Anastasia looked more like barely twenty then mid thirties.

She seemed so serene now, her face was relaxed and peaceful, not anything like the half-wicked; half-teasing expressions she wore when awake. Time hadn't changed her much, she was still several inches shorter then him and as slim as she was pale. The black sheets and pillows seem to swallow her up, making her look fragile and mistakenly innocent.

"Ames, Ames!" With a thud seventeen-year-old Ames White fell out of his bed having been unceremoniously pushed by a pair of insistent hands. "Will you get up already?" With a groan he raised him off the floor, and forced his eyes open as he did so. After adjusting to the dark he saw a shape in his room which could only be one thing.

"Ana? It's two a.m.!" The fifteen-year-old girl standing by his dresser only rolled her eyes before throwing some clothing in his general direction. "What are you doing here? You could've woken Dave up!" Crossing her arms she only looked towards him, throwing both mock disdain and anger his way.

"Wake Dave? You must be nuts. Both of you sleep like the dead - and I'd know." She smirked at him but it was still dark and neither of them could see clearly. Since he slept naked Ames was glad that Anastasia hadn't brought a flashlight. "Get dressed will you? We don't have all night." Moving towards the door she cracked it and glanced into the hallway for sentries before turning back in his direction. "So are you coming or not?"

"Where?" Fully dressed at last Ames walked over to the door where she was standing.

"Downstairs of course." Downstairs, he didn't have to ask where downstairs, the only things downstairs was the alter and the snakes.

"Ana, you're insane." He reached out to grab her arm but she'd already slipped out the door. Cursing he followed her. "And just what the hell do you intend to do once you're there?" Ducking behind a wall tapestry for a second the two waited for the hall sentries to pass before walking down another corridor. Once past the intersection she turned to him with a grin.

"Just a little fun." Fun - right, her idea of fun usually involved him taking the rap for something she did. Common sense told him to turn around and leave her to her own fate, but fascination and a twisted sense of concern kept him from doing so. After a few minutes more of silence they were past all the guards and nearing the pen where they were kept.

"Ames, have you ever wondered if you were good enough?" He knew she was talking about the council, but he was surprised that she'd dragged him all the way down here just to ask him that.

"Of course, but they say we'll find out when we're ready to know." She glanced at him sadly, as if wondering what they'd done to his brain.

"Wouldn't you rather know now?" His forehead scrunched up for a second, but then he realized what she intended to do.

"Ana don't! What if you're not ready? They'll find out!" He wanted to stop her, but Anastasia was too fixated on the chest inside of the cage to notice. Easily jimmying the lock she began to work on the one keeping the chest closed. "Don't!" Having followed her, he grabbed both her arms and held them against her torso. "Ana this is sacrilege. You know that." She shrugged, and he could feel her disdain at his fear.

"Do what you want, I've already decided." Cursing at her stubbornness he tried to pick her up and physically carry her away, unfortunately she knew that he didn't want to get caught and took advantage of that. "If you try to make me leave, I'll fight you - you know I can, and I think you also know how much noise we'd end up making." Glaring at her, her cursed before backing out of the cage, watching with a morbid fascination as she lifted one of the snakes from their resting-place. Gently she took it in her hands, looking it in the eyes. To his surprise it didn't struggle and when she spoke the commands, it didn't bite her but compliantly lowered its head. With triumph she turned to him glancing his way with teasing eyes and tinkling laughter.

The image of the memory faded, but her laughter didn't, and as Anastasia began to stir he watched her with both expectancy and tentative disappointment. She hadn't seemed to recognize him before - so perhaps she didn't remember any of it. When she opened her eyes, they darted around with alarm and she tried to raise herself up out of bed, only to collapse back down from all the drugs that had been introduced to her system that day. Finally her eyes rested on him. "Where am I?"

"Safe." She didn't exactly seem to not recognize him rather her actions weren't anything like what he'd been expecting. She didn't seem surprised to see him, but neither did she seem to care that he was there. Seeming satisfied with his answer she glanced around the room noting the lack of windows and how everything seemed to be deceptively normal. Reaching out to touch the bedpost she recognized that it was steel beneath the wood like paint and that the rest of the room was likely the same.

"We know each other well don't we?" Her tone was ever so calm, ever so relaxed, but for some reason it conveyed coldness.

"Of course." He'd expected her to be cold to him, especially after how they'd last parted, but this was just disconcerting.

"Then why don't I have a single memory of you?" She finally looked at him, and it was something akin to despair and hate that plagued her eyes. He couldn't answer her, and she could tell that he looked as if she'd stabbed him. For a full minute he was silent.

"You don't remember anything at all?" She looked puzzled, as if the question strained her thinking.

"I remember your voice clearly… but the rest..." Her voice drifted off and he became completely still. Finally he saw that she was struggling to keep her eyes open.

"Sleep now, I'll return in the morning." Rising he walked directly to the door. Once it had been closed and locked behind him he turned to the drawer in the hall, out of it he pulled a photograph one with the two of them standing besides Sandeman. Cursing at Sandeman he tore it to shreds before he was able to regain his self-control. Grab his coat he stormed out of his apartment, needing time to think and to figure out just how he was going keep the conclave from finding out that he had Ana.

***

"Hey Joshua, are you sure that's everything?" Max and Alec were covered in dust and sweat. For the past hour that had sifted through every box of books that they could find in the basement. So far they had found only one other picture and it was of a class of very young X5's that Alec identified as his own.

"Joshua sure. No more books." Depressed the two of them rose and started dusting themselves off. Looking over at Alec Max was about to make a sarcastic comment when she saw the utterly dejected look on his face. Keeping her mouth shut she turned back to dusting her clothes.

"There has to be something here." Max and Joshua both heard Alec's frustration and neither chose to comment on it. "So he used two of the photographs as bookmarks - that doesn't mean he couldn't have had a photo album somewhere." Max was about to tell Alec that it would take weeks to go through everything when Joshua broke in.

"Father's room upstairs - locked door in desk. Joshua never opened - opening means ruining fathers desk." It was a faint hope, but it was the only one that Joshua had to offer. Alec almost bolted out of the basement towards the bedroom, but Max quickly stopped him.

"Alec, the floor up there's unstable, I've seen the desk but the ground beneath it might not support your weight." Alec looked at her and nodded his thanks for the warning before continuing on his way. For some reason he just seemed so damn fixated on it all.

Once upstairs Alec walked tentatively into the room, behind him Max paused at the door, not willing to test the floor herself. The desk was made of good oak and Alec doubted that he could break it himself. What he could do however was drag it across the room and have Max help them. The two X5's tried but unfortunately neither was strong enough. Joshua on the other hand was. It took some convincing, but Max and Alec were Joshua's family and it wasn't hard for him to see just how much this meant to Alec. With some hesitation he pulled hard on of the drawers, causing the lock to snap. The drawer however had nothing but a few blank envelopes in it, Alec wanted to drop it and go to the next one when Max deterred him. "Try opening a few of those envelopes." Alec hesitated but agreed a moment later he was glad he had bothered.

"That's her." From the envelope he pulled out a photograph and a letter. "And next to her, that's Jon - or X5-737, the one that died this morning." This time, Anastasia's hair was braided and she wore military fatigues. She was leaning against a wire fence glancing in the direction of the Camera. Behind her was an X5 also in Military attire. Looking at the letter Max saw that it was written in Refro's handwriting. It wasn't so much a letter as a notice of some sort. However it was written in a language that Max could neither understand nor decode. Meanwhile Alec had picked up another envelope and opened it. In this one there was another photograph, this time older. "What the heck?" Glancing over Alec's shoulder Max saw that it was also of Anastasia only her hair was shorter. The disconcerting thing was that even though this photograph was much older - she could tell because White, who was also in it, was much younger - Anastasia looked the same age as she had in the previous one.

Max could see Alec studying both photo's with intensity, so much so that veins in the back of his neck could be seen. "Alec," Placing a gentle hand on his shoulder, Max moved forward. Oddly enough, the use of a gentle voice on her part caused him to jump a little. "Listen, I heard what you told Logan about Anastasia helping you out once but that doesn't explain why you're so intense on finding her."

Alec looked hard at Max, as if unsure of what to say. "It's not just her, it's Jon. Manticore didn't usually let us work in pairs and we were one of the few exceptions. He hauled my ass out of trouble more then once. Of all the years I spent in there he was the only friend I made, and then one day I screwed up big time…

"I said that's not an option!" The yelling in the next room managed at last to wake Alec, besides him Jon was still out cold, his head having now been roughly bandaged. "They screwed up - damn right. But if you think for a second that eliminating two fully operational X5's is going to set some kind of example you are dead wrong." Not fully listening to the conversation going on outside Alec checked Jon's vitals. He was still alive, if barely.

"If we just let this go the other X-series will - "

"The other X series will do nothing! Killing them off only weakens our operational capacity and makes us look incompetent to the board is that understood? It you'd rather not have X5-737 doing fieldwork then have him reassigned as my personal guard." The voices one male and one female faded slightly, and Alec tried to rouse Jon. Groaning the other X5 got up. At that moment the door slid open and the two tried to stand at attention.

At the door stood Lydecker and a woman that Alec recognized as the one who had handed him bread in phy-ops. Surprised he froze for a second, missing the question Lydecker asked. Thankfully Jon interjected. "I did sir. X5-494 was not the one who screwed up."

"I see." Lydecker's jaw tensed and it seemed like he was about to lash out. But the woman behind him stopped him.

"Then it seems I was right." Cold and impassively she looked the two transgenics up and down before issuing an order to Lydecker. "In which case have X5-737 cleaned up and reassigned. X5-494 can return to his normal duties." She pivoted on her heal and left then, leaving a stunned Alec trying to figure out just who she was to be giving Lydecker orders.

… She showed me kindness twice, and Jon's dying wish was that I rescue her from White or who ever the hell got her. I owe that much to him Max. And it's not something I intend to give up on." Max looked at Alec with something akin to a new opinion. It seemed that there was a part of him and every X5 who'd been left behind at Manticore that she never knew a part that contained a fierce loyalty and a strong determination. Oddly she found her thoughts wavering towards Logan and wondering just what he would've thought if he could see the part of her that Manticore had buried.

"We'll find her Alec, and you'll keep your promise to your friend." Behind them, Joshua had heard the story too. And hugging them tightly he added his own voice to that promise.

AN: Just a little clarification, I think I may have written something a little clumsily (big surprise huh?) But the picture Max found contains three people: White, Sandeman, and Anastasia, they don't know what Sandeman looks like yet because his face was ruined by a water stain (convenient - no?).

Thanks to all for the feedback, but it's a little depressing when it feels like there are less and less people reading, (some of you must write fanfiction - surely you agree?) Or am I just being glum and over analytical? Thanks again for the reviews, and like I said if there's anything that seems wrong or off please feel free to tell me, constructive criticism is always welcome. Thank you!

Calypso