DISCLAIMER: I don't own DA, Alec or anything of the like. They belong to people who don't appreciate them.

MY EMAIL: vokal_angel_@hotmail.com

WEB ADDRESS: http:/destined.to/prodigy

CHAPTER SEVEN – DARK

He felt his eyelids falling involuntarily closed, the delicate shutters closing slowly over the windows to his soul. He felt all life ebbing away from him, his body grew heavy, and he found it difficult to move. His energy was expended, his effort spent. There was nothing more he could do. It was over.

Alec was bored. He rested leaning on the counter of Chow-abunga, his chin cradled in one hand, with the other holding his position on the counter. Despite all his efforts to stay awake, the ennui took hold, and he was losing the fight to stay awake. He had been working the counters at Chow now for just over three weeks and the endless monotony was slowly driving him mad. Forget Psy-ops, forget Manticore's torture, fast food was absolute hell. Alec knew that Antigone was deliberately drawing out the civil trial just so that he would have to stay base-bound at the café longer than he really needed to.

Alec furrowed his brow in frustration. At the moment exactly three brunettes were driving him crazy. Rachel, the ghost of his first love whom he would never forget, Max, the family he never wanted but was realizing he couldn't live without, and Antigone, the taciturn enigma with the most incredible green eyes he had ever seen. Alec sighed.

He didn't understand Antigone, he didn't know why she had turned away from him after they had been so intimate, after they connected. He wanted to know everything about her, but she was so cold to him, distant. And the whole people thing, like connecting with people, especially with women, on a level that wasn't physical or a superficial cocky smile and smart-ass remark, was hard for Alec. His initial reaction to Antigone's distance had been to play her; to play the cocky charmer, to win her back. But it was harder than he thought it would be - she had ended up playing him, and now here he was, flipping burgers at a fast food place designed to ridicule his people. Alec grimaced.

"One Toxic Waste Shake!" Frell's voice boomed from the kitchen. "Alec!…" Alec was stirred from his reverie by the rumble of Frell's powerful voice.

"Whatever…" Alec rolled his eyes. It was going to be another long day.

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Antigone stacked her papers neatly in front of her in a methodical and repeated fashion. She smiled mutedly, vaguely satisfied with her accomplishment. The case was over, and they had won. She stood and turned, not looking at the faces of the victim's relatives and friends. Their cries of injustice were drowned out as she walked purposely out the door, her high heels clicking on the polished floor, their eerie resonance resembling the sounds of empty shrapnel shells falling wretchedly to the ground after gunfire. She had done her duty.

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It was dark – so dark, where Alec was. He could feel an unsettling dampness around him and like a shadow it licked at his being, percolating his skin, seeping into his very soul. He tried to gasp, but he wasn't breathing. God, he wasn't breathing. It was so quiet without his breathing… without his heartbeat. He tried to move, but his body was restricted somehow. No, it wasn't restricted, it just wouldn't move. Alec closed his eyes, attempting to will himself to budge. But his eyes were already closed, and no matter how hard he tried, he remained motionless. It was so dark. Where was he?

Alec awoke with a start, sitting up quickly he breathed deeply, inhaling precious life into his lungs. It felt so good to breathe, and yet, he had never stopped. He had been dreaming. He ran a hand through soft brown hair, his eyes darting about his surroundings. He was in Chow-abunga. He had fallen asleep. It was okay.

"Alec!…" Frell yelled at Alec over the sound of the dishwasher. "You haven't fallen asleep out there have you? You're supposed to be sweeping"

"No buddy, not sleeping, just resting my eyes for a bit!" Alec called back, a hint of joviality in his voice, as he tried to push the last remnants of the dream from his mind.

"Rest your eyes on that dirty floor pal!" Frell's cavernous voice boomed through the dying light of day.

Alec chuckled. He liked Frell. The poor boy was slightly deluded in his Transgenic beliefs, but hey, weren't most people these days? They lived in tumultuous times, and in such chaos people often sought order. For Frell, CTFS was that order, the regularity in an irregular world. They told him how to act, when to act and with how much force. He didn't need to decide. He didn't need to question what was right or wrong, he just acted, and that made his life simple, planned and, ultimately, beyond his control. But he was funny and sincere, and, although Alec would be hard pressed to admit it, one of the only real friends he had ever made. But then again, Frell wasn't a real friend. He didn't know Alec. He knew an illusion, a farce, a charade. Alec's smile dimmed, but remained on his young face, as it always had, and always would.

"I don't hear the sound of sweeping…" Frell chastised and Alec responded jokingly.

"You'll hear the sound of my left hook connecting with your jaw if you don't pipe down little man!"

"I'd like to see you have a shot!"

Alec laughed as he picked up the broom, sweeping away the days dirt on the ground, blindly hoping that his pensive mood would be swept clear of his mind in unison with the grime of the café. Yet he could not shake the lingering feeling of disconcert and ominous fear that arose from his nightmare and that had fastened itself to Alec's thoughts, and seemed to have a powerful seize on his heart. A feeling that only grew in intensity as he looked to the kitchen in Frell's direction. Something very bad was going to happen very soon.

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The moon shone with an intensity and clarity over Seattle that night that was rare for this time of year. Typically, clouds would have overshadowed its brilliance, obscuring its soft beauty from sight. Yet the sky was clear. The moon was burnished, bold, a valiant sentinel of humanity's darkest hours.

Alec stirred in bed. He felt a disturbance that formed a feeling of ambiguity within him. It wasn't his advanced genetics or highly attuned sense that picked it up, but something else. An intuition that Alec had been experiencing for quite some time now but still could not explain. It was as if it was greater than himself, greater than the way he was made. He knew she was waiting for him.

Antigone approached Alec's apartment slowly, calculated, her heartbeat so loud it seemed as if it was reverberating inside of, rumbling off the sides of her body and resounding in her mind in clear, steady hammerings. She was unwittingly holding her breath. With each step she took, with each passing moment, she grew more nervous and she considered turning back. But she was so lonely, so lost, and she couldn't turn back, not even if she tried. Her feet kept moving, her heart urging her feet ahead in beat with its resonance, propelling her forward, carrying her onwards; her heart knew what she wanted even though her mind didn't. As she approached his door, it opened, and he turned slowly to face her, a seemingly vast distance between them. His eyes met hers and they stared into each other's soul portals for what seemed like an eternity. Alec was the first to move. He reached for her slowly, gently, the primeval passion he had displayed several weeks ago absent, and all that remained was a soft, reassuring presence. Without thought, without hesitation, she held his hand, her petite white hands inside his large palms. Unconsciously, iridescent tears began to fall softly down her cheeks.

Alec was perplexed. He didn't know why Antigone was upset, why she had turned up to his door at 2am in the morning, why rich salty tears bled down her perfect features, and like himself, her face wasn't easily readable, so he turned to her eyes, those deep, forest-green eyes that glittered with the intensity of the stars and the determination of the summer breeze that lingers as Autumn advances. They were deep and sorrowful, and for a brief moment Alec could see the world reflected in them, could see the pains of her people mirrored in those unfathomable, archaic eyes. He didn't know why, but he suddenly felt as though she held the all the suffering of humankind within her, and he cried too.

She cried into his shoulder as he held her tightly, as if he was afraid of losing her, her fingers gripping his shirt with equal intensity. "Alec…" her voice was choked into a sob.

"Shh…" he calmed her, stroking her hair gently. "What's wrong…?"

"Alec…" she choked back her grief. She tried to speak, but her voice croaked.

"Don't worry… you don't have to explain" Alec tried to fight back his own silent tears, trying to be the brave one, the strong one, like he had always been. And he would be, she needed him to be.

Some time later, they went into his apartment, he sat lightly next to her on his sofa, she leant on him tentatively.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to wake you…" She apologised weakly with a half smile.

"I don't sleep well…" Alec looked away from her, his eyes to the floor. He felt that if she looked into his eyes, she might know the reason for his sleeplessness.

"Do you ever feel guilty, Alec?"

Alec's breath caught in his throat. Did she know? But how could she? He had been so careful, he had built the protective walls around himself, and he had assumed the charade. He suddenly felt like his whole world was going to end. Of all the people he had met, all the people he had murdered and all their families, all his friends, her opinion was the one that mattered most to him. And he couldn't bear to consider that she knew he was a killer. He swallowed, his breath shallowing, his body stiffening. "Guilty…?"

"About the transgenics… that you've… that you've…"

A flood of relief washed over him, intermingled with a strange sense of incongruous mockery. She asked if he was guilty about killing transgenics, his own people, and the very people he was endeavouring to save, when really he had killed her people…

"That the team has pursued…?" He finished her sentence delicately.

She looked into his eyes and he looked to the floor. "No Alec… that you've killed."

Her voice held no judgement, no emotion. It was a flat question.

"No I don't." He answered bluntly. He hadn't lied. He'd never killed another transgenic. Not even at Manticore. Not ever. So he didn't feel guilty. But he knew she would see through him, so he put up his soldier face, the face of a killer.

"It's that easy…? To just not feel…?" She tried to search his face, but it was blank, but his eyes betrayed something, something that frightened her.

"Sometimes it's easier not to feel…" His eyes flitted away from hers. "Than to think about the things that you've done…"

She nodded slowly.

"What's wrong Antigone…?" He still wouldn't look her in the eyes.

"I hate transgenics…" She tried to sound vehement, but her voice broke. "At the trial… transgenics supporters, and even the victims' families, they said, they said things about what the Coalition does… with the transgenics… once they've been…"

Alec turned back to her, his curiosity sickeningly peaked. He knew not of the rumours. "Disabled…?" he hurried her sentences along, suddenly desperate to discover the secret.

"They said stuff about tests and torture… about… futility, about how the victims from last months raid died just so that… just so that the transgenics could be made to suffer…"

Alec swallowed again. "Suffer for what?"

"For existing…"

He turned to look her in the eyes and found them clouded with sadness, a deep sadness that seemed to adhere to every degree of her being like and insidious shadow.

"I loved someone once…" She began softly, slowly, rolling each word over in her mouth so they came out perfectly shaped, perfectly formed as one long cylinder of sorrow, a gaping hole through the middle where love should have subsisted.

Alec was a little stunned by this revelation and the sudden change in topic, but realised that it all formed a regulated flow within Antigone, each topic linking to last, so he listened and he waited for the revelation he knew would soon come.

"Roland. He was so light and beautiful, always smiling a warm, infectious smile…" Antigone paused.

Alec's thoughts drifted to the counterfeit grin he often assumed and he shuddered involuntarily.

"He was a few years older than me, and a lawyer, he did pro-bono family law, to help the kids." She smiled quietly in remembrance. "He was a poet… he had a pure soul…" Tears began to flow uninhibited down her cheeks. "He was a gentle, compassionate man… One day he brought home one of his clients, a child who had nobody…" Her voice came out in racked sobs. "…Who had been arrested for trying to steal a car… He was only nine years old… He taught him how to play football… they went to hockey games together…" She broke down.

Alec watched her face. Watched the wretchedness in her dark eyes. Watched as she brought her hand to her mouth, trying to stop whatever it was she was saying from coming out. But she continued, and he looked away from her, unable to stand the pain of looking into her distraught face.

"It was a while before we noticed the barcode…"

Alec's eyes darted back to her.

"Roland started to ask questions in law circles, asking the police, the sector cops, if they knew what it meant… the kid found out… Just before the whole thing became public, the kid panicked… or maybe that's just what he was made to do… to kill…" She looked back into Alec's eyes, who tried to keep his emotion from them. "But they found Roland the day the kid disappeared, with hockey tickets in his pocket, tucked safely away with an engagement ring…" Her sobs grew more desperate. "He was dead. My beautiful Roland was dead. They said whoever killed him had to have been strong… really strong, too strong… for a human. So now here I am, doing my duty, duty to my uncle, and to Roland." She blinked away tears brewing beneath her lashes and palmed the tears from her cheeks. "I hate transgenics…" She said again, not sure if she was trying to convince Alec or herself. "They deserve to die…"

Alec cast his eyes to the ground and then spoke softly, only just above a whisper.

"Yeah… they do"