Disclaimer: well, I'm pretty sure that Dark Angel doesn't belong to me but I bet if it did that I could give it a good sprucing up.

Author's Note: Spring Break is over. I'm sad, I'm going to miss all my friends cuz they all live in Memphis and I'm not very popular in Knoxville…imagine that. So, anyway, bad news for me good news for you…cuz you get updates quicker. So did anticipation run high while you were waiting for this? I hope so…and that it's worth the wait. Oh, dear, it's late and I'm so tired I spelt that weight before I caught the error. Time to go to bed before I have to wake up at 7:30 tomorrow…this morning.

Review like the fiends you are!

Comin' to Get you

Chapter 10: I know she didn'

"Sick, huh?" Zane said quietly, wincing as he cleared his throat.

"And why is that?" Jondy asked, her voice deceptively calm.

"Because it's Zack," Max answered not too sure why Zane and Jondy both looked like they had swallowed more then they could chew.

"Because it's Zack or because he's what you keep wanting to call brother?" Jondy stood up slowly and made her way into the kitchen alcove.

"Because he's our brother." Max followed her as Zane and Alec exchanged looks and did the same.

"What if you didn't look at him like he was your brother, would it be sick then?" Jondy asked with a beguiling smile pulling down a glass for herself and looking at Zane to see if he wanted one too. He shook his head but watched the exchange with wide eyes.

"But I do."

"What if I didn't?" Jondy poured something red into her glass and walked past the crowd that had gathered around her.

"But you do…" Max followed her again, not wanting to give this argument up.

"How do you know?" Jondy stopped in her tracks to look at her sister, before shaking her head and making her way back into her room. "If I don't look at him like a brother and you do it's still sick?"

"This is better than t.v." Alec whispered to Zane who jus nodded his head in agreement making his way into Jondy's room.

"When you grow up with someone they're your brother."

"Not necessarily."

"You don't," Max bit her lip against the sudden feeling in the pit of her stomach. "Do you?"

"I have sisterly feelings for Zack, yes, but that doesn't mean I have sisterly feelings for all our little demented family members. I'd be a hypocrite if I said it was sick and it's not like I'm the only one, either."

"What do you mean?"

Zane chuckled, "Syl and Krit are like bunnies."

"Very fluffy bunnies, if you ask me." Jondy laughed but her grin faded when she saw Max's face. "They stopped looking at each other as brother and sister a long time ago, way before they ever got involved," She held up her hands in surrender.

"And no one has problems with this?"

"Why would it be any of our business? They're happy together…do you realize how rare a thing that is?"

"But they're brother and sister."

"No, Max, they aren't. We use the term brother for the men in the family because we have no better term for them. We grew up not understanding the differences between man and woman," Jondy flopped down on her bed careful not to spill her drink. "It's only natural that when we figured it out the relationships of innocent nine year-olds would change."

"What do you mean?" Max asked wearily as she sat down on the edge of her bed. Jondy scooted back until her back touched the wall and Zane slid down to sit next to her while Alec made himself comfortable next to Max and got ready to watch the show.

Jondy let her head fall back on the wall with a thunk, watching the people around her warily. "In Manticore all of you were my siblings, brothers and sisters, with no problem." She smiled over at Alec who was laughing softly. "Then I got out and I lost everyone for what seemed like forever. Zack showed up to put me on my feet and left. He came back a year later, got me out of my foster home, put me back on my feet again, and then left again…this time he came back every two months, no matter where I was. Two months to the very day he would come and find me." She felt as Zane dropped his head onto her shoulder, the weight comforting in the dark room and she let her cheek rest against his soft hair. "I didn't get to see anyone else for a very long time, though he told me how everyone was doing just not how to find them. We saw each other so much that there wasn't any room for something else to grow that was more than friendship."

"Then he let us see each other." Zane said, his voice soft and thoughtful.

"With conditions…"

"He let you see each other?" Max asked angrily, somehow it had been easier thinking that Zack had kept them all apart. "After all that crap he gave me about it not being safe?"

"It wasn't safe…"

"But he had no choice, we were determined to find each other…at least this way he had some control." Zane answered with a soft smile. Knowing exactly why Max was angry.

"I got to tell everyone the good news." Jondy said with a laugh. "You should have seen Syl's face. Me, with purple hair and a ton of henna, showin' up at her door with a glowerin' Zack." She sighed and bit her lip, "then we went to see Krit and I was so afraid he wouldn't be my big brother anymore…but he was. The same quick grin and liquid brown eyes." She looked at Max pointedly, "he was still my big brother, somehow we couldn't feel anything else for each other. I guess, some people you just can't feel anything more for." She sighed again and took a sip from her glass, "then it was off to Brin," everyone but Alec had to choke back the tears that came involuntarily at the name. "She was a painter…Zack never told her but he loved her work." She smiled sadly at Max.

"It would have meant a lot to her if she'd known."

"He wasn't very good with emotions."

"Unless it was with you," Zane added, his voice sliding like velvet.

"He had his moments," she smiled, "next was Zane. I got to see him in his horribly ugly orange coveralls…" she smiled down at him and opened her mouth to say something but stopped and shook her head. "We went to see Tinga after that. Big sis was just starting to see her boy, Charlie, and you could tell she loved him even though she couldn't tell him what she was." Jondy pursed her lips as she thought. "We got to see Lis when we left there, and her collection of Teddy bears…those things almost got her caught once Zack told me. Something about trying to bring them with her everytime she moved." She cleared her throat and looked at Max with sad eyes. "He wouldn't let me see you, Rich, or Ben. Too dangerous, he said."

"Sounds about right." Max said wondering where Rich was just then, because she knew where Ben was.

"I went back home then and we went right back to him showing up every two months. Everyone was still my brother and sister…but they had all changed. How could we not have changed in the real world…but I didn't know, I didn't." She swallowed and looked down at her hands like she was fighting back sudden tears.

"What…"

Jondy's breath caught, "he, Zack, left one time and then right after Ben showed up…" She bit her lip when she looked over at Alec who had gone very pale. "He had changed, more than anyone else had, and so did the way I saw him. He wasn't my brother anymore."

"I know…" Max started but Jondy cut her off.

"He was a man. I didn't look at him and see a brother." She smiled at the opened mouth shock around her. "He showed up at my bar and he had this glint in his eye that I recognized…I saw it everytime I looked in the mirror. It was the glint of someone who was on the edge and was wondering if it was time to jump." She stared off into the dark room not looking at anyone anymore, seeing in her mind's eyes the way Ben had slid up to the bar his lips curling at the edges sweetly. She saw as he folded himself onto her couch and watched her with blue eyes that shined in the dull light of the one lamp she had turned on. "We went back to my apartment and talked for a couple hours, about anything that happened to take our fancy. I'd never been able to do that before, just talk to some guy that I didn't feel sisterly towards."

"Never?" Alec asked with a smirk.

"I wasn't exactly healthy relationships r' us. To Zack's eternal unhappiness, he had to bail me out a lot when things got rough. But Ben and I just talked until…something came to our attention." Alec shifted on the bed uncomfortably, knowing he wasn't going to like what was going to come next. "I was in heat."

"You didn't…" Max asked, swallowing softly. Zane closed his eyes, running a hand through his hair unhappily, he had known that there was a past he just hadn't realized that it was this kind of past.

"You've been in heat, sweet heart…be honest could you have said 'no'? Just try saying 'no' to a man that looks that good and smells that good and to top it all off he's an X5. An X5 in heat attracts any X5 of the opposite sex, they don't have any control over what they do." She looked at Max, her blue eyes impossibly cold. "We had no choice, we couldn't stop it."

"So you and Ben…"

"I woke up two days later so afraid I almost couldn't breath." She looked Max right in the eye, "I was a mass of bruises and scratches and bites and I was terrified that when I turned over he wouldn't be there…I lay there for what must have been an hour just trying to remember how to breath and then I turned over and he was there." She smiled and her eyes shifted to Alec, and he saw the soft wonder that she still felt when she remembered the scene. "He was asleep next to me; Ben always looked…serene when he slept. He was so beautiful." She swallowed and hit her head against the wall softly; she could feel all three sets of eyes on her; fascinated despite themselves.

"He woke up and smiled, I thought I was goin' to faint with relief. The glint in his eyes that I'd seen before was gone when he looked up at me…" She closed her eyes for a long moment; remembering. "He stayed with me for six months…Zack didn't show up the entire time. I started to get worried and Ben kept telling me it was Zack, everything would be cool."

"Zack disappeared for about three months around that time," Zane said quietly, not wanting to intrude.

"He showed up the exact day he would have if he'd come every two months like he was supposed to." A laugh escaped her lips; "I raised hell for that…but we went out like usual just me and Zack because Ben wasn't home when he showed up. Thinking back I have a feeling that Zack did that on purpose." She rolled her eyes and bit her lip thoughtfully, "We went back to my place and hung out after filling our bellies with some of the greasiest fast food I've ever had…then Ben came home. Zack left with a growl that sounded something like good-bye and…Ben was jealous."

"Why?" Max asked with a lump in her throat, the first words that had come out of her for five minutes. Even with her view on her siblings being in relationships, she felt for the remembered pain that she saw in Jondy's haunted eyes.

Jondy opened her mouth but Zane answered first, "no one was closer to Zack than Jondy…she was the one who convinced him to let us see each other. It was easy to be jealous of what they had, I imagine especially if you're dating her."

Jondy was running a light fingertip along her thigh thoughtfully. "He didn't handle jealousy very well. We fought…really fought," her voice catching.

"Couples fight, Jondy," Alec said not fully understanding why she looked like she wanted to curl into a ball.

"We weren't a normal couple. We don't fight like normal people. We were raised to be violent and that comes out sometimes when we aren't expecting it. So when we fought it wasn't all with words…he put a knife in my thigh and I crushed his jaw, we were wild and angry and we fought like we wanted nothing more than to feel the others blood." She stopped, taking a deep breath, her face angry and sad at the same time, "and then, as sometimes happens, pain starts to mix with pleasure and it was like we went into heat all over again." It came out a whisper so low that Max had to lean in to hear it.

Jondy stared down at her hands not meeting anyone's eye. "The glint was back in his eye when he woke up in the morning…and left." Her face crumpled, "and I was so angry that I let him."

Zane touched her hair softly, letting the strands fall through his fingers like silk. He pulled her into him, an arm wrapping around her shoulders. "It's ok, J."

"No, its not…I could have stopped him." She looked at Max and then at Alec, "I could have, and he wouldn't have started…"

"Started what?" Alec asked softly his voice breaking, he cleared his throat and tried to look unaffected.

"Killing," Max said softly, watching as her sister buried her face in Zane's shoulder. Maybe she had been wrong and Jondy didn't handle emotions as well as she thought. Max looked at Zane's eyes and knew why he had had such a problem with her saying a relationship between any of them would be sick. She felt Alec shift next to her and her head snapped around to watch as he stood up from the bed and walked around to her.

He touched her shoulder softly and turned her to look at him, two strong hands cupped her cheeks and he swallowed hard. "Jondy, you never could have stopped him. He was going to snap eventually, no matter what." Max watched with an open mouth as Alec let his hands fall and he looked directly into Jondy's eyes, searching for words that he had never actually understood before. "You made he happy for a time. You managed to calm something that no one else could have, but not even you could have done it forever."

Zane dropped a soft kiss on the back of her head making her turn slowly to face him, her eyes dry and wide, "I keep forgetting, when you're doing back flips in the living room, just how strong you are. You take a punch to the gut and smile and you keep smiling when you stand back up, but you grin like a mad woman when you knock them on their asses." He kissed her cheek gently, "You're amazing."

She bit her lip as she looked at him, "I don't want your sympathy," she saw him pull back and smiled slowly up at him, "though I appreciate it." She turned to Alec and brushed his cheek, "I don't want your absolution, though I …thank you for that too." She turned to Max with eyes as sharp as diamonds, "I told you that for a reason." She took a deep breath and moved closer to Max. "We aren't normal. We don't fit into the mold…and when we try we have a tendency to break it." Jondy tugged gently on a strand of dark brown hair. "We take what joy we can and most of us can't afford to second guess it."

"I just don't understand…"

"Why we couldn't stay brothers and sisters?"

"Yeah," she whispered the word as though it would snap everything into place.

"We did…you're my sister and Krit is my brother and so is Zack…Syl's your sister and Krit's your brother. That never changed just more demotions got added to the relationships. Is that so hard to accept?"

"I don't agree with it." Max said softly but slipped an arm around Jondy's shoulder.

"You don't have to. You just have to accept it." She touched her forehead to Max's gently.

"I think I can handle that."

"Good." Jondy grinned and wiggled her eyebrows. "So are you hungry?"

Max stood slowly and shook her head, "I think I should go home. O.C.'s probably worried about me."

"I'll walk you home," Alec said as he stood up shrugging his shoulders. "About time I got to bed anyway."

"Even an X5 needs to refuel," Zane said with a smile at Max.

"All right…I'll see you two tomorrow?"

"Of course," Jondy answered with a smile and walked them to the door shooing Sasha out of the way. "We'll have a whole 'no crying' day, or horrible confessions…those can tire you out." She ruffled her sister's hair and pulled Alec over to her roughly and laughed up at him. "Thanks," her lips touched his cheek gently and then she was pushing him out the door with another laugh.

She scratched behind Sasha's ear and was rewarded with a low rumble that she interpreted as pleasure and padded back into her room where Zane was still sitting on her bed. "You never told me," he to his hands.

"I didn't tell anyone…Zack was the only person who knew." Jondy ran a shaking hand through her hair and sighed. He didn't say anything just got slowly to his feet and walked up to her. A warm hand touched her cheek and then he was making his way into his room. "Za-ane."

At the whine she watched as his shoulders dropped and he turned around with a smile and one raised eyebrow, "yes?"

"I don't have anyone to cuddle with…keep me company and be my glorified foot warmer?" She smiled sweetly and did her best to look adorable, which could very well have made a blind man cry, especially if he was anything like Zane.

"Sure," he changed course and followed her into her bedroom. He stripped off his shirt and pants with his back turned knowing Jondy was slipping on her knee length t-shirt behind him.

She was already in bed when he turned around, with a flick of his wrist the room went dark and he padded over to the bed quietly. Sliding under the covers he felt as she shifted to make room for him. Warm hands moved over his chest and she was laying her head against his neck and he couldn't stop the nagging voice in the back of his head. When he cleared his throat it was like a gunshot had gone off in the room, a sudden noise to break the almost perfect quiet. "Jondy…" he felt like this was déjà vu all over again.

"Hmm?" her voice rumbled against him.

"You never said if you thought of me as your brother." He felt as she froze against him and her head lifted slowly. Even in the dark he saw her eyes, as blue as lightening bolts, and his breath caught in his throat. It occurred to him that her eyes were the perfect description of her: wild, electric, untamed, dangerous, and beautiful.

"No I didn't."

"Do you?" He had to force the words out, apprehension making a cold sweat bead on his forehead.

"Do you want me to?" She asked gently her fingers making nervous circles on his skin.