Ok, just a quick question: Am I under-doing the M/L angle? I ask because while I wouldn't mind writing in long poignant moments, I find that they tend to hinder the story line. Also I have a drawing I did of Ana and Ames in my sketchbook if anyone wants to see it. Ames came out a bit strange b/c I tried to unage him a bit but Ana's fairly close to how I intended her to be. Tell what if you want to see it (when you review of course!) and I'll post the link with the next chapter.
BTW - I wanted to name the type of snake but I'm not a reptilian expert so I wasn't sure what type it was.
Chap 6
Dreams
It felt so cozy and warm that Max wasn't sure if it was really her feeling like this, but she didn't care because it was a safe comfortable warm. It was the type of warmth she had coveted but never gotten as a child, warmth that the cold grayness of Manticore had always denied her. The kind of warmth radiated by love.
In its grasp she felt completely relaxed, and in Logan's arms she felt so very safe. Max smiled dreamily and buried her self deeper into his arms, glad that he was there for her. "I love you." His voice was soft, so soft she wouldn't have heard it if his lips weren't pressed close to her ear, his head rested on top of hers. Max's smile only widened when she heard his whispered words and she wished that this moment could last for eternity.
"Max." Logan's whisper came from a different direction this time, and she was suddenly very confused. "Max!" The darkness of night changed to bright sunlight in the blink of an eye and Max knew all too well that she had been dreaming. Groaning she pulled herself up off of Logan's couch and shook the drowsiness out of her head.
"I'm up, I'm up!" Logan watched Max as she fought away the remainder of sleepiness that clung on to her and felt a stab of pain shoot through him. She had looked so peaceful as she slept that he'd spent a good part of the night just watching her, wishing that she could have that kind of serenity in her everyday life. In her waking hours she was every bit the tough soldier that Manticore had trained her to be. "Sorry I fell asleep."
"It's alright. Alec will be here in a few minutes to pick up the information I found for him, if you want to stay we can put this plan of his into motion then." Max nodded and tried to look nonchalant at Logan's businesslike demeanor, she had wanted to distance him but it still felt as if a knife were turning in her gut. This was your choice Max, you're the one who said that keeping Logan at arms length was better then having him dead. She tried to convince herself that the arguments she'd originally made were right, unfortunately the voice in her heart disagreed.
***
White sat on his bed still fully dressed in his office clothes from the day before, a troubled look marring his features. He had expected Anastasia's subtle defiance of him from the moment he'd first 'saved' her from lock up. But the teasing friendliness that she seemed intent on displaying was something that was not only unexpected but painful to him as well. Whether her actions were all artful mind games or if she was truly acting in ignorance of what he had done he couldn't tell. And that inability to tell was killing him.
He had spent the entire night trying to rationalize her actions and while his mind wandered everywhere from her having been planted as a spy, to him having guessed wrongly about her capacity as a clone. Unfortunately none of these explanations served to clarify her chosen course and the most realistic answer was still what he had first thought to be true. Frustrated Ames turned his thoughts from figuring her out to paying her back for that little stunt she'd pulled when he'd had the guys help move the piano from his old place. He wasn't normally vindictive but he'd had that piano moved purely for her benefit and that she'd decided to use the gesture to embarrass him was an insult that could not be borne. After a few moments of floundering he came up with the perfect payback, rising with a grace breed from years of training White slowly made preparations in the dark. If the lights had been on, he might have caught himself grinning sadistically in the mirror across the room.
***
The sobbing that threatened her was muffled only by will power, As Anastasia gazed out the glass window panes of the school library she was glad both for the rain outside and the lack of people under the high arched roof. As she sat there, her tears began falling on their own accord and by the time she tried to hide them, someone had already seen.
"You're crying." Glancing up to find the owner of the gentle voice Anastasia was surprised that Ames had managed to sneak up on her so suddenly.
"You're imagining it." She tried to smile it all away, but his hand moved too quickly for her to dodge and before she could react he had managed to wipe away some of tears with this thumb.
"They seem fairly real to me." Letting go of her face he sat down besides her and gave her time to dry her eyes and mutter a very smothered 'damn you'. When she had collected herself somewhat he looked at her expectantly, not exactly probing, but asking for answers none the less. A moment or two later she relented.
"I went with a few of the others to see the children that we to be yielded at tonight's ceremony…we found the cradles where they were being kept." She began staring out the window again, and Ames waited patiently for her to finish, she knew that the sacrifices were to be children, they all did - but that was no reason to cry. For these children, early death would be kinder then long life. "Most of them were sleeping, so I didn't pay them much heed… but one woke up, and he started crying… so I picked him up." The tears started falling again, only this time they were more insistent. "He was perfect Ames… except he was blind. If only he hadn't been blind…" She was choked by sobs now, and knowing no other way to respond Ames slid to the floor by her chair and pulled her towards him, letting her cry silently into his shoulder until she pulled away. "I'm afraid I won't be able to do this Ames… I'd expected these children to be grotesque or something…but he was just a baby…" She let the sentence drift off and he knew that she was talking about more then just tonight's ceremony and other women's children. But like her, he was afraid to think about that uncertain future, and instead turned his thoughts to cheering her.
"You will Ana, you always do." Smiling a bit, he fished a tissue out of one pocket and offered it to her before returning to his pocket and fishing something else out. "This will help you." The thing he took out caught the light, and Ana soon saw that it was a silver locket dangling from a silver chain. "I know that wearing jewelry in school is discouraged and that jewelry during the ceremonies is forbidden, but you're smart enough so that they won't find out." Ana could see he was trying to make her feel better and gave him a halfhearted smile, but even as he helped her put the necklace on, he could tell that sorrow still lingered in her eyes.
~
A light eerie chanting filled the air around fifteen babies who lay on edge of white chalk circle. The sound bounced off of cold granite walls, returning to the ears of the fifteen maidens who uttered them as they kneeled upon the floor in white ceremonial robes. The chanting continued, picking up momentum though not volume. Through a grate in the ceiling they all watched the moon as it traveled across the sky, waiting for the moment when its light struck the center of their circle exactly. When it did not a single voice wavered, but each one lowered their arms to the floor. Ever so slowly fifteen snakes crawled down their bodies and onto the floor.
One by one they drew their arms back, continuing to chant all had their eyes fixed on the snake they previously held. All save one, and that one watched not the snake but a blind baby boy. The snakes reached their destination and slowly wound their way onto the children in the circle. They were the largest snakes the conclave had, and as Ana watched they devoured the Familiars unwanted children, many of who were smaller then most children of a month old should be. As the snake reached the boy she'd been watching she was forced to turn her eyes away, and when an unearthly wailing filled the air she could only fight back the tears that threatened her.
She felt the snakes against the skin of her own neck then and she felt suddenly sick to her stomach. The snake moved down her body ever so slowly and every movement it made sickened her.
Ana came out of the dream suddenly and violently when she realized that the movement she felt against her nightgown wasn't purely a manifestation of her imagination. Gasping in shock she immediately grabbed the snake so as to stop it from proceeding down her torso. "Morning." Revolted by the snake's presence she didn't notice her other visitor until he greeted her. The sight of Ames White grinning smugly as he leaned casually against one of her bedposts managed to anger and embarrass Ana at the same time. "Hope you slept well." Turning crimson Ana wondered just how long he'd stood there. Unfortunately her pride did not allow her to ask and so she only hissed through her teeth and threw his little pet at him when she walked by on her way to the bathroom. A few minutes later she reemerged still wearing her nightgown - only this time it was semitransparent thanks to the water that still clung to her from her shower.
From where he stood Ames didn't bother to suppress his smirk or glance away - having removed all but one very small towel from the bathroom earlier. She glared at him, but this time it was his turn to laugh - his gaze never wavering from where it was fixed on her body. "Opps."
***
Nearly half an hour later, Ames was dressed for work and in a much better mood. He had made breakfast and set it on the table. Not sure if Ana would join him he began eating on his own, going over some paperwork as he did so. When she came into the kitchen at last he was nearly done and did not bother to look up from his work when she opened the refrigerator - which was a mistake. A fraction of a second later he felt her standing behind him and a second after that something very, very, cold had been dropped down the back of his shirt. It wasn't so much the ice cube down his shirt that made him jump as it was his surprise at her playing such a childlike joke. The motion still succeeded upset his chair and as he tried to simultaneously catch his chair before it reached the floor and get the ice out of his shirt, he looked duly ridicules and Ana couldn't help laughing at the sight. When he had at last succeeded in both tasks he turned to face her. Ana had expected him to glare at her and perhaps yell a bit - which was why she didn't duck when he threw what was left of his breakfast at her.
Yelping when it hit her Ana skidded back a little before glancing up at him and then grabbing something off of her own plate and throwing it back at him. When White retaliated their little game turned into a fully-fledged food fight and as the they began laughing neither stopped to think that for two thirty-something selectively reproduced adults they both behaved an awfully lot like normal misguided teenagers.
***
"You sure this is the place?" Alec looked slightly incredulously at the building to which Logan had traced White's phone call. "I mean this building is in one of the most active area's of Seattle - shouldn't an operation as covert as White's be somewhere... secluded?" Max shrugged and gave Alec a look through her sunglasses.
"Who knows - Maybe they took the expression 'hidden in plain sight' to heart." Pausing the conversation a moment Max glanced around the parking lot to see if they had been spotted, and while she didn't see anyone targeting them she did find her target. "White's here. His car just pulled in over there." Nodding in the direction of a black Lexus, she waited for Alec to give the go ahead. This was his mission so when and where was his decision.
"Let's do this." Revving up his bike he waited until White was almost out of is car before closing in the short distance and veering sharply so that White was pressed back against his vehicle. Getting off the bike, she shoved White back into his car and got into the back seat. At the same time Max had done the same thing on the other side of White's car and sat waiting in the passenger's seat with a gun pointed at his head.
"452." White bit out the number with his customary warmness, only mildly surprised that she had been stupid enough to come here.
"Shut up." Max was tempted to fire the gun just to see what the inside of his brains looked like, unfortunately she was here for a reason.
"We know you have Anastasia, we'd like her back." Alec cut straight to the point of this conversation not wanting this meeting to take any longer then it had to. "So we're proposing a little trade, we know you want your son and we'll give him back to you as soon as you decide to hand Anastasia over to us." White would've opened his mouth to protest but no sarcastic comment came to mind - only surprise - why did Ana matter to 452?
"We'll give you 72 hours to decide. When it's time we'll call on this. Better start thinking." Throwing a phone in his general direction Max backed out of the car and got back onto her bike, still pointing the gun as Alec made a similar retreat. The two exited in different directions in case White decided to try and take them down as they left. He didn't, and as Max rode hard for the next sector she grimly hoped that the next phase of this plan would prove likewise easy. You're show now Logan, let's just hope that this isn't your funeral.
***