Title: Concrete Angel
Author: natalie180
Rating: PG (may change – we'll see…)
Show: Dark Angel
Pairing: M/A
Type: wip
Summary: When a new girl comes on the scene, who is she and how will she change Alec and
Max's lives?
Thanks again to my beta SpoiledLilAmy - you're my best fan
Thanks to all my reviewers - you make me smile
Author's Note: When I wrote this my muse just happened to be with me. Usually I take a while to write though so don't get you're hopes up about super speedy updating.
Chapter Four
Jake was waiting for Marina, who was yelling a story into the apartment's living room through her closed bedroom door. They were going out of TC that night to explore some of Seattle, maybe even cave into the temptation of doing a little breaking breaking and entering and entering. They figured they had been deprived of weekly allowances for long enough that they deserved some pocket money to make up for those years of lost income. Jake was slowly pacing the living room, mindlessly grunting sporadic uh-huhs in response to Marina's story. He stopped his pacing next to the coffee table when he spotted something with Marina's designation written on it. She had always hated being called by her designation, and had insisted that the other soldiers at Manticore call her by her name. Jake picked up what he was to learn was Marina's Manticore file and flipped to the first page. It recorded Marina's existence before her birth: name of her surrogate, technicians who created her, maternal and paternal DNA donors… Jake's eyes widened.
"Oh God," he whispered.
Suddenly, Marina emerged from her room, scrunching her just washed hair in an unsuccessful attempt at making waves into curls. She continued with her story until she saw the look of utter shock on her boyfriend's face.
"Hey, what's wrong Jake?" Marina said, concern showing in her voice. Jake momentarily stumbled over incoherent words until he looked up at Marina and simply said,
"Have you looked at this thing yet?"
"Yeah, some of it. Couldn't take too much at a time though," she replied.
"Uh… have you taken a look at the first page?" Jake continued shakily.
"Um, don't think so. Why? Please tell me is says I'm an alien… preferably from the planet Krypton," Marina said laughing. She wondered why Jake was making such a big deal out of her file.
"I wouldn't laugh about this Ina. Here, read this," he said as he passed Marina the file, open at the first page. Marina quickly read down the page until her eyes were caught by two lines of particularly familiar numbers.
"Oh God," she said as she collapsed on the couch. "Oh God, oh God, oh God," she repeated, cradling her head in her hands. As Jake sat next to her and pulled her close to him in an attempt to comfort her, he muttered,
"Oh God is right."
******
Alec sat in his office, feet on his desk, swiveling right, left, right, left on the chair. He was thinking about his life in general, but those sorts of thoughts usually led to thoughts of Max. Alec knew what he felt for Max, what he had felt for her since the day he had set eyes on her. He resisted giving his emotions a name for two reasons, though. For him, love led to death, pain and destruction, and the wounds left from Rachel's ordeal were still raw even years later. Also, he didn't want to qualify his feelings unless he knew that Max shared them. So, instead of doing something productive with himself, Alec stayed in his office, turning back and forth on his chair.
What seemed now like ages ago, Max had admitted to Alec and herself that there was nothing left between her and Logan. She had also admitted that she didn't know what was to come next. But Alec knew: he was supposed to be the one in her life.
Suddenly, Alec got up and walked into the Headquarter's main room. His eyes scanned the dwindling crowd, most of whom were leaving for the evening. When he spotted Max, he quickly walked over to her and said,
"Max. Can we talk?"
"Uh… sure," she replied unenthusiastically. She knew what the topic of conversation would be and she had been trying to avoid this discussion, figuring that Alec would never bring it up himself. But now he had, and Max would have to talk.
Once they had moved to a quiet part of the room, Alec began,
"I figure that this'll be easier if we just skip the small talk and cut to the chase."
"Yeah."
"All right… you know how the other day, when we were talking about Logan, you said that there weren't gonna be any more lies and that we were gonna stick to the truth from then on," Alec asked questioningly. When he received a small nod from Max, he continued, "Well, I think we've been lying to each other, to ourselves. We've have to figure out where we go from here."
"I already told you I don't know what's next," replied Max.
"I think you do," Alec said more firmly.
"What do you want me to do Alec? Pull a magic 8 ball out of my bra and tell you my future? What do you want from me?" Max said.
"I don't know. Can we start with the truth? It's the least you could do," Alec ventured. After contemplating Alec's proposal, Max gave a reluctant "Sure."
"Ok… ok," Alec said, slowly nodding his head, pleased that they were finally getting somewhere.
Just then Dix called over to the couple,
"Hey, guys. Marina's on the phone asking for you Alec. Says she wants to see you in the apartment. She made it sound really important."
Alec faced at Max with a pathetic look on his face. Max's only response was a look of contempt.
"I'm sorry, Max. Can we continue this really soon?" Alec said sheepishly. Max just nodded, a stone cold face hiding her emotions.
"Oh, Max. Marina asked for you too," Dix added as an afterthought.
"What?" Max muttered to herself.
"Come on," Alec said, and both X5s made their way to the stairwell.
******
After having her plans for a night of fun with Jake dashed, Marina decided that she should talk to Alec as soon as possible. Now she was pacing the room, waiting for he and Max to arrive. Thanks God Dix had been able to find them so easily, otherwise Marina would probably ended up tearing out her hair she was so strung. So many questions were swarming through her head, too many to make any sense of.
Marina was brought back to earth by the sound of the door opening, and two people coming in. She turned to look at them, her face completely blank, her mouth slightly open.
"What's wrong Ina? Is it something with Jake?" Alec asked, worry evident in his voice. He had never seen Marina speechless. Marina just shook her head in response.
"You wanted to see us, right?" Max said, trying to get Marina to talk.
"Yeah… sit down," she finally said. Alec moved to sit down on the couch, but Max stayed standing close to the door behind a chair.
"I'll just stand," she said.
"You might wanna sit for this," Marina advised.
"I'm fine standing," Max said, just to be belligerent. She had accepted that Marina was not a threat to her, but she was still wary of the girl.
"You sure?" Marina pressed on.
"I said I would stand," Max replied, her tone unkind.
"Oh, cause sitting might be more comfor -"
"Max, just sit!" Alec commanded impatiently. "And Ina, get on with it!" The two women slumped defeated into their respective seats and Marina began.
"Yeah, so I've been looking at my Manticore file over the past couple weeks, discovering what they really though of me." She paused, looking at her hands, and then continued, "You know the phrase 'Curiosity killed the cat', right? Well, it's true."
"What did you find out?" Alec asked, concerned that Marina had unearthed a particularly dismal aspect of a past mission. After a tension filled moment, Marina continued.
"I found out I'm not an orphan."
"Who are your parents?" Max spoke up.
"I'm looking at 'em," Marina said. After having registered Marina's comment and realizing that it wasn't a sick joke, he sat dumbfounded, staring at the wall facing him. An equally rattled Max uttered two words,
"Oh God."
"My words exactly," Marina said before the trio fell into a tense silence.
******
Did I surprise you, or did ya see it coming all along?
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