A/N: I hope that you guys like it!
DISCLAIMER: not mine, blahblahblah.....but it will be mine! Mwahhahahahahahaha!!! ....if only....
Moll :D
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~TC Command Center
Max and Alec walk in, both still slightly shaken from Lucy's power. Alec's arm was wrapped around Max, who is lost in her thoughts about what Lucy can do. Mole, the very lizardish manager of the Command Center, sees the couple and heads over to them.
"Hey Max, Alec. You two look like you've just seen a ghost. What happened?" he asks, showing concern, a rare event for him. Max and Alec glance at each other warily.
"A girl was brought here, Lucy. She's at the med center right now." Max beings, then pauses, not sure how to word Lucy's powers. Mole gives her a look, and she immediately knows what he is thinking. "Don't worry, Mole, she's on our side. The thing is, though, we're not sure if she's Manticore or not." The lizard-man contemplates that.
"So, what you're saying is that this girl, uh.." he says, searching for the name. Max helps him out, and he carries on. "That this girl, Lucy, has more power than a transgenic? That's...whoa." He looks over at Dix, who's busy fixing up some computers. "Dix, come over here for a second." The little deformed man comes over, smiling at them.
"What's up guys? Whoa, you all look like something bad's going down. Is White at it again?" he asks, obviously sick of Ames' lame attempts at ruining TC. "He should have given up while he still had some dignity, but no, he just had to try one more time...." Max, Alec, and Mole look at each other, amused at the little man having a rant.
Max squeezes Alec's hand and looks over at him, nearly laughing at his feeble attempt to hold back his laughter. Not able to take any more, she interrupts the misshapen man's nonstop ranting. "No, Dix, it's not that. We brought a girl that we assumed to be a transgen back to TC, but it turns out that she isn't from any units that we've contacted or looked up. She's a mystery." The squat man thinks for a minute.
"Do you have anything that would identify her? Anything at all- an id, a sector pass, anything at all?" Alec's face lights up as he remembers the one important detail that they overlooked.
"She had a backpack with her- a black one. Maybe that has something we could use." he suggests, hoping that it will be helpful. Dix smiles brightly.
"Great. You two go get the bag for me, and then we'll get started on the search." he says before turning back to his computer.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~TC Medical Center
Lucy opens her eyes, afraid that she might not be dreaming. Once she determines that she isn't in any place associated with the Familiars, she surveys the room that she's, for the time being, stuck in.
It's hospital-y white, but still kind of homey, so she knows that it probably isn't some underground, evil-plan making sleezball that has her captive. Again. In fact, she's pretty sure that she could leave at any time, judging from the friendliness of the room.
Or, at least it used to look friendly. Lucy's gaze falls on the shattered vase, and the various broken things around the room. Oh shit, I did it again. Damn nightmares. God, I need to keep them under control. Oh no!! What if someone saw? I'm dead, I'm dead, I'm so dead...
Footsteps coming down the hallway startle her, and she falls back into the pillows, not knowing that Max already saw her sitting up and awake. She pretends to be asleep as Max and Alec look around their room. Max whispers to Alec about Lucy's not being actually asleep in a whisper so low only X's can hear. Alec turns on the light next to Lucy's bed on the lowest setting, but it still shocks her eyes.
"Lucy, wake up. Lucy..." Max says softly, waiting for the girl to stop pretending. She looks at Alec, giving him the go ahead.
"Um, Lucy? Yeah, you might want to work on your timing a bit more. You see, we saw you examining your room on the way down the hall. So, you can stop fake sleeping any time."
Lucy tosses a little, then yawns and sits up. "God, you two should know better than to wake up a sleeping teenager- I've heard some vicious stories." Max and Alec glance at each other, liking this girl already.
"If you wouldn't mind me asking, where the hell am I?" Lucy asks, trying to be polite, but it comes out sounding rather blunt. The smirk on Alec's face grows as he wonders what it would be like with a girl like Max running around, seeing as this girl reminds him of her.
"You're in TC. Welcome, have fun, blah, blah, woof, woof. Now, the real reason we're here is to ask you how the hell you did that thing." Max says. Lucy looks embarrassed and shy, and she tries to play dumb.
"What thing?" she asks innocently, trying to sound convincing but failing horribly.
"The light showy, exploding the room thing." Alec describes for her. Her face falls, and she knows that it's over.
"I don't know how I do it or where it came from, but one day I started to do weird things when I got really emotional. It was like my whole world changed. I started to look over my shoulder everywhere I went, never really letting my guard down enough to have fun. I tried to be normal, to fit in, but I didn't feel like I did." she says, remembering with pain her past life, and its bitter end.
"Lucy, you aren't Manticore, are you?" Alec asks. She looks confused for a moment, then a little scared.
"No, but if you're another covert military operation set on killing me, you might want to get ready for a fight. Just ask Ames White." she retorts angrily, then smiles a bit at the memory of dear old Ames with blood gushing all over his face.
Max and Alec look at each other ~How the hell is this girl connected to the Familiars?~ Max recovers first, "No, we don't want to hurt you. We're transgenics, so we're pretty open to difference. Now, tell us how you know White."
Lucy closes her eyes, trying to push back the horrible images that come to mind. "Okay...this might take a while."
Her family dead, killed out of pure hate. ~It was my fault~
Shiny metal knives covered in blood lying on the table, waiting to be used. ~I deserved it as punishment~
The fire. ~If only I would have come home sooner, they would have just killed me~
Blood...so much blood. ~It's everywhere...never ends.~
"Lucy, are you alright? You don't have to tell us." Max's voice snaps her out of her thoughts. Lucy shakes her head.
"It's alright. I need to tell someone." she says, opening her eyes to reveal unshed tears. "He-he killed my family. They said that it was a fire, but they were dead before the fire started. I got a letter, telling me that they-that they know, and would find me, too. I ran, and didn't stop...but they got better at chasing, and found me. I was captured, but I escaped a few days later. I got out, but wasn't strong enough to travel, so I hid. But they still found me. I ran to that bar-Crash?" she says, looking at Max and Alec for confirmation. They nod, and she continues, "-And I almost got caught again." she says. She lifts her gaze to meet theirs. In a throaty voice, she says, "Thank you, thank you so much. I'd rather die than go back to that- that place."
Max remembers Brin saying that before she was taken away. She looks Lucy up and down, noticing various scars and deep cuts along her arms, certain that there are more under the borrowed gray tank top that she has on, in addition to the gash on her face and the stab wound in her stomach. ~This girl's been through hell. Damn, I don't even know if I could make it through that.~
"How long ago were you taken captive?" she asks before she can stop herself. Lucy, too, looks at the scarring cuts and sighs.
"About three weeks. I got out ten days ago." she says, then laughs a little. "Guess I won't ever wear short sleeves again."
"Sure you will. Scars will fade, and you'll be as good as new." Max tells her, trying to make her feel better.
Lucy's eyelids begin to droop, but she fights it, finally noticing that Alec has her bag. "Can I have my backpack, please?" she asks sarcastically, trying to sit up to grab it, but the pain from her most recent stabbing is too much and she falls into the pillows, whispering, "Damn those Familiars. I'm gonna kill them all just for fun." She then looks at Alec. "Please?" she asks, her voice softer this time.
"What's in this thing, anyway?" he asks, eyeing it cautiously.
"Well, give it to me and I'll show you." Lucy says, noting the look of skepticism on his face and rolling her eyes. "Yeah, like an injured, unarmed teenage girl is going to take on two fully grown, heavily trained transgenics. Give me a little credit, will ya?"
Alec hands the bag, but gets ready to fight, just in case she turns out to be an evil guy in a teenage girl's body. What? Stranger things have happened.
Lucy takes the bag from him and leans her head back against the pillows, suddenly tired at the thought of sharing the memories trapped in the bag. Her eyelids droop, and before she can even open the bag, she falls asleep again. Max gently tugs the bag out of her arms and smiles slightly at the girl, who's smiling slightly in her sleep. She pulls up the blankets around Lucy's arms and hands the bag to Alec, who swings it over his shoulder.
"Lucy, you are one confusing girl," Alec says, and turns off the light as they walk out of the room. Hand in hand, they walk to Max's office, determined to get some information on this girl.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Max's office
Alec opens the creaky wooden door and holds it open for Max. She mumbles a thanks and sits down on the couch, exhausted. Alec closes the door and sits next to her. He sets the bag in between them, and looks at her.
"You ready?"he asks, trying to hide his concern for the girl he's liked ever since she kicked him into the door of that cell so long ago. He knows how emotional she is, underneath that tough girl attitude, and is worried. She nods, thankful for the concern on his part. He opens the bag, gently dumping out its contents on a rickety old coffee table.
"A small knife, a notebook, some clothes-the norm. Put anything that we could possibly get information out of in a pile on that side of the table." Alec instructs, and they start sifting through Lucy's only belongings left.
They work like that for a while, and the pile grows. After they search through Lucy's things, they start on the now rather large pile. Alec picks up the notebook, which appears to be a journal of some sort, and reads aloud, "December 14, 2022./ It's getting harder to run...I don't know if I want to anymore. I can't handle the guilt much longer. At least I know that if I die I might have a chance to apologize to them...then again, after all of the pain I've caused, I'm pretty sure I'm hell-bound. /Sometimes I wonder if they're watching me, if they're all my guardian angels. But that's not happening, either. Why would they want to protect the person that caused their deaths. And even if they are watching, sometimes I secretly hope that they aren't, because then they see the failure that I am. I've lost my family, my hope, and, I probably will lose my life. /Just remember the letter. Don't ever forget the image."
The two look at each other in awe- this girl has had some really hard times. And what letter was she talking about? Max picks up a bent, slightly burned envelope as an answer to their question and opens it, pulling out a letter and a picture with writing on the back
"What's so special about the- oh, god...Alec, look at this picture." she says, her eyes welling up at the image in front of her. He moves in closer to see the picture, his presence comforting Max. He takes the picture out of her hands and studies it.
Blood covers everything in the picture, making the mutilated bodies barely distinguishable. In the middle of the blood-stained room, a white note stands out. Written in blood are the words "You can't hide, mutant!" "Shit...I think we know how Lucy's acquainted with the Familiars."
He looks at Max, who's busy wiping tears discreetly from her eyes. Alec puts his arms around her, pulling her close, "It's okay, Maxie. Don't worry, we'll help her." She looks up at him, her eyes filled with pain and fear, betraying her.
"I-I can't believe they'd do this to a teenage girl...that's just sick." Alec nods. Max rests her head on his shoulder. "She's so strong, Alec. She's just a girl, really, and they've put her through hell itself. Maybe we can help her, and she'll stay here." she says, wanting to believe her half-hearted prediction.
"Everything's gonna work out perfect, Maxie. I promise we'll do all that we can." he tells her, kissing her forehead. Max closes her eyes, relishing being in Alec's arms, safe from anything that might harm her. Finally letting her guard down, for the first time since she can remember, she falls asleep.
They lay like that for a while, Alec toying with Max's hair, Alec thinking about Max and Max dreaming, before Alec realizes that she's sleeping. Knowing that Max desperately needs the little sleep she can get, he lays down on the couch, pulling her a little closer. He kisses her forehead and falls asleep, too, not knowing that she's dreaming of him, too.