Author's Note: Many thanks to my new beta, Rhasa, for all her help.
In the Shadows
Part 4
By Gem
Alec paced anxiously within the confines of his new living room, wishing he could think of a word other than 'confining' to describe it. It was just a little after 9 pm; only a few short months ago he would have been hanging with his human buddies at Crash at this time of night, scoping out the ladies and hustling a few games of pool. Only a few weeks ago this hour would have found him playing cards with his transgenic friends over in HQ. Tonight though, he was debating the relative merits of watching TV with the volume turned almost all the way down, or reading one of the books Joshua had brought over from his room.
Or going crazy, quietly of course; that was currently number one with a bullet.
The kid... he refused to call her by a number even in his head, and he wouldn't let himself use the name tickling in the back of his mind... was asleep. He'd checked on her twice in the last ten minutes just to make sure of that; at least that was the excuse he'd used. If he was totally honest with himself he had to admit he'd checked on her more to make sure she was really here, not just really asleep. It still seemed so unreal that after all this time she was here with him.
For a little while anyway; he couldn't let himself forget that part.
She'd kept him busy to the last, wearing out even his normally hyperactive body and mind, but he'd found it bothered him a lot less than he would have expected. In fact, he hadn't minded it at all. Maybe some of that was because he knew it wasn't a permanent situation, but even Alec couldn't con himself into believing that was the whole reason he was enjoying his sudden plunge into fatherhood.
He wished he could.
His daughter seemed to switch gears as fast as he did, much to Alec's delight; they'd moved easily from playing the piano to some more coloring to playing catch, with the laughing toddler as the ball and Alec doing the catching. Dinner had arrived twice, first a pizza courtesy of Joshua and Luke. Later Gem, the closest thing Terminal City had to a resident expert on childcare, arrived with something greenish and sprout-like that she claimed was good for growing children. 49614 had eaten with enthusiasm whatever was offered, although according to Luke, she made the exact same face Alec did when she first saw a leafy green vegetable reaching for her.
When bedtime arrived he'd put one of his T-shirts on her as a nightgown and tucked her in, believing that would be the end of her day. Alec was quickly set to rights, however, when she sat up and demanded a story. He was at a loss; he had no intention of sharing the stories he'd been told in childhood, not ever. And obviously his brother Ben had sucked all the imagination out of their shared gene pool, because Alec couldn't make up a story to save his life. In the end he simply revised a true story, telling her of a beautiful princess who battled the evil Gossamer to save her Prince Charming, and the court jester, from a fate worse than death. And if he gave Max and Logan the 'happily ever after' they seemed incapable of finding for themselves, it was only to see his little girl smiling as she closed her big green eyes.
And now here he was, with a sleeping child in the other room and nothing he could do but stay quiet himself until it was time to go to bed. Unfortunately, if there was one thing Alec hated, it was quiet – it allowed him far too much time to think.
A knock on the door rescued him from his own thoughts; he all but ran to let in his savior, only to falter when he realized the identity of his visitor.
"Brin," he said awkwardly, backing up a pace or two from the door but not quite inviting her in.
She smiled hesitantly and held up a half-full liquor bottle in front of her, waving it slightly for emphasis. "I come bearing Scotch and apologies."
"Scotch, huh?" A reluctant grin tugged at the corners of his mouth. "Trying to get me drunk so you can have your way with me?"
She threw a doubtful glance down at the bottle. "Would I actually need alcohol for that?"
Alec quickly decided this was not an avenue of discussion he wanted to venture down, especially not with his kid asleep in the next room. "I'm not so sure it's a good idea anyway. Not," he held up a hand in anticipation of an objection or an apology, "because of... earlier. I'm just thinking maybe I shouldn't be sitting around getting hammered in case she," he jerked his head towards the closed bedroom door, "needs something."
"Good point." Brin gnawed on her lip, and decided to change her strategy. "But I don't know that you're in much danger of getting drunk on this stuff, Alec. This is the Scotch we had last week; do you remember that? It's not even 2 years old and it has all the kick of an X4 after a half-hour in the iso-tank."
"Catching on to the black Manticore humor already, I see." Despite his sarcastic tone, he stepped back and waved her into the living room. "I guess I could risk one drink."
"Great." She tucked the bottle under her arm and slipped past him into the living room. "Do you have any idea where they put your glasses, or are we going to do this the old-fashioned way and suck it straight out of the bottle?"
"I suppose you'll want the glasses clean too, if we're going to be all formal about this." Alec was backing up towards the half-open door to his bedroom as he spoke. "They put all the breakable junk in my room; I guess they had the idea that, I don't know, kids break stuff?" He shrugged and grinned at the foolish notion. "I'll grab a couple of glasses and be out in a flash."
In reality he was gone several minutes, giving Brin ample time to wander around the living room and inspect all the finishing touches she had been too busy to notice earlier. She had just finished admiring 49614's attempt to draw concentric circles when Alec quietly opened his bedroom door and rejoined her.
"Turned out to be harder than I thought to find two clean ones," he admitted as he handed her a blue plastic tumbler. "So in honor of being my one millionth guest... today, that is... you get to use the glass I stole from the strip joint near the bus station."
"A strip joint, you say?" She smirked at him as she poured her drink into the tumbler and then held out the bottle for his use. "Guess drinking's not the only thing you're going to have to give up now, is it?"
Alec carefully avoided her eyes as he poured some Scotch into his toothpaste glass. "Yeah, well, we'll see how things play out."
She sensed he was hiding something from her, but even in just the short time that she'd known him she'd come to realize Alec couldn't be pushed. It went against the grain to let the comment slide, but she decided she was already in deep enough; there was no point in antagonizing herself right out the door again.
"So how do you like the new digs?" she asked, hoping she'd landed on a safely neutral subject. "I couldn't believe it when Mole suggested all this. I mean it seemed really sweet but..."
Alec grinned and finished her thought, "But it seemed really sweet, and it was coming from Mole. I can see how that would throw you." He glanced around the room he was still becoming accustomed to. "It definitely threw me."
"In a good way?"
"Sure." He looked surprised by the question. "This place is great, and she was just over the moon about her room. She, uh, really liked that lamp you gave her."
"You knew?" She'd spoken out of surprise, and without thinking; it wasn't until she saw the look on his face that she realized her words were an echo of his from that afternoon. "I mean, who told you?" she added quickly.
He cleared his throat and pushed away the memories of the afternoon, just as he could see she was doing. Seeing the lamp, and knowing what it meant to Brin, had softened Alec's attitude considerably; he didn't want to stir things up again now.
"You did," he said after a minute. "I think it was the first, or maybe the second night we stayed up talking. You told me about the place where you stayed when you first escaped Manticore, and I remember you mentioning a lamp like that. When I saw it in her room, I figured it had to be from you."
"I almost bought one for myself too," she confessed. She took a quick sip of her drink, hoping the alcohol would explain the sudden redness in her cheeks. "I know it's silly, but it just makes me feel... safe, I guess. Normal."
She could tell from the darkness that briefly shuttered Alec's eyes that she'd once again touched on a sore spot, but all he said in response was, "That's the plan, isn't it? Normal."
"I, well, I didn't buy it," she stammered, trying to back away from whatever pain she was unwittingly inflicting. "Maybe I could just come over sometimes and borrow... what are you going to call her, Alec?" She frowned as she realized it was a question she hadn't thought to ask anyone yet. "No one told me."
Alec took a large hit of his drink, grimacing as the raw liquor hit the back of his throat. "That's because it's a question with no answer." He took another swallow, this time a smaller one. "At least not an answer anybody likes."
Brin put her glass down on the battered end table retrieved from the CFO's office and settled herself uneasily on the sofa. She'd tried dancing around the raw patches a few times already, but apparently she just wasn't surefooted enough to avoid them. Her only hope now was full disclosure.
"Alec, what aren't you telling me?" She flushed as she realized how he might interpret her question, how he had every right to interpret it. "I know that sounds pretty arrogant coming from me, but..." she turned her palms upwards in appeal, "there's something eating at you. I can see it; I can feel it. I want... I want to help, like you've helped me. To make it better, if I can."
"You can't," he said shortly. A moment later he regretted his sharp reply when he saw the hurt register in her eyes. "It has nothing to do with you, Brin, or with anything you did or didn't do."
Alec began to pace the length of the living room, as though he could find a physical way out of his self-created mess. "Look, I'm not mad about Renfro anymore, at least not much. But there's no way for you to fix this, because you're not the one doing the breaking."
"But I'm pretty good with a broom," she said gently. "Just ask Dix. I can help pick up the pieces, if you let me."
He took one last swallow of his drink and reached for the bottle on the table to refill his glass. A glimpse of his daughter's bedroom door out of the corner of his eye changed his mind, however; instead Alec placed his glass next to Brin's on the end table and walked around to sit on the far end of the sofa.
"How about we skip the metaphors, okay?" he asked plaintively. "It's been a tough day."
"I would've thought it was a great day," she countered. "You got your daughter back after all this time, and your friends made you this new little home; life should be good. Really good."
"It is," he automatically protested. In a quieter voice he added, "It's just not going to stay that way."
Brin frowned at his cryptic comment. "I'm sorry, I must have left my secret decoder ring back at Manticore. And then with the fire and all... you want to try that again in English?"
Alec wasn't going to tell her, at least not tonight. He'd already endured enough dirty looks and disapproval from Max and Logan and even Joshua with his puppy-dog eyes. He didn't need any more guilt, not today.
"I'm not keeping her," he heard himself say, despite his private resolution. "I can't keep her. So go ahead and join the 'We think Alec is an idiot' club – Max is probably still collecting dues."
* * * * *
When he lived alone at Father's house, Joshua usually painted during the day. The lighting was better, and it was a good way to pass the time until his busy friends could come and visit him in the evening. Since moving to Terminal City, however, Joshua had as little free time before dark as any ordinary; as a result he'd learned over the past few months to paint by lamplight, and sometimes even candlelight. He didn't really mind the change in his routine, but he was starting to envy Max and her feline DNA, at least when it came to night vision.
He was deeply intent on his latest painting when Luke walked down the corridor; he didn't hear his friend's footsteps going past his room any more than he heard Luke turn around and come in. Joshua was so focused, in fact, that he had no idea he was no longer alone until the smaller transgenic's hand fell on his shoulder and inadvertently pushed the paintbrush upwards.
"Uh... oh." Luke raised both hands in the air and took a step backwards. "Hey man, I am so sorry. I just wanted to..." His quicksilver attention was caught by the half-finished painting on the easel, and his guilt was immediately overwhelmed by admiration. "Say, that's really nice. Really pretty." He shot Joshua a curious glance. "What is it?"
The misunderstood artist growled something under his breath, but reluctantly turned his eyes back to his work-in-progress. He knew Luke had intended no harm when he touched him, just as he could hear the sincerity in the transgenic's appreciative comments.
"Joshua #113. Alec and little monkey."
"Oh yeah?"
Luke leaned forward, peering at different sections of the canvas, but at first all he saw was the usual blend of colors and stark lines. Joshua's art tended to be non-representational, which meant that most of his friends had to be walked through his work section by section. This time, though, when Luke tried leaning back and squinting, he did actually see something there.
"Wait, oh... wait a second, I think I get this one. That's her, right?" He pointed to a green, violet and gold section on the lower right of the canvas. "She's playing with... well, it looks like blue chopsticks or something."
"Crayons," Joshua supplied. He was well aware that most people didn't see people and feelings the way that he did, or at least they didn't express them that way. By now he was used to having to explain his work. So far, though, no one had laughed, so he really didn't mind. "Little one is coloring."
"Yeah, I see it now." Luke was getting excited; this was like solving a puzzle, only he was actually the one getting the right pieces into place. Some of them, anyway. "And that's Alec over there by the..." He looked up expectantly at his tall friend. "Is that what I think it is?"
Joshua nodded. "Piano."
"Thanks, big guy." Luke started to clap Joshua on the back in a display of camaraderie, but thought better of it when he saw the smear of green in with the dark blue and blackened gold that was Alec. "But isn't he lookin' at the piano instead of her? Or did you just forget to give him a mouth?" He grinned at the thought. "Wouldn't that be something? Alec without a mouth?"
"Alec... see only the past now, cannot look away," Joshua explained in his usual oblique fashion. "Little monkey is future."
"That's deep, man. I, uh," he scratched his head, "don't get what the piano has to do with it... it's new. Sort of. But hey, that just makes it deeper, right?"
Joshua grunted, though it was difficult to tell from his tone if he was expressing his thanks or suggesting that art appreciation lessons might not be amiss.
Luke squinted again, and then backed up, trying to see the painting as a whole now that he'd identified some of the subjects. "Hey, you know, Joshua, this painting is really pretty and all, but it's... it's kind of sad." He looked uneasily from the painting to the artist, hoping he could get his point across without offending Joshua. "Couldn't you give it a happy ending or something?"
Joshua grimly lifted his paintbrush to delicately touch up the misplaced green streak on Alec's back. "Hope so," he said quietly. "Hope... hope so."
"Maybe a kitten," Luke suggested, pointing to an unfinished section of the canvas near 49614. "Right about here."
Joshua growled softly.
"Or a puppy," Luke said quickly, putting both hands behind his back before he got into more trouble. "Puppies are good too."
* * * * *
It took Brin a minute to catch her breath after Alec's announcement; a minute she hoped was not too long for her words to have meaning.
"I don't think you're an idiot," she said slowly. "I'm just not sure why you think you can't keep her. Can't, Alec?" Brin smiled crookedly at him as she fumbled for the right thing to say. "You don't seem like a guy who uses that word a lot. Until this moment I wasn't even sure you'd heard of it before."
"Get serious; Manticore was all about can't. It just took me a while to realize that some of them I'm never gonna be able to shake."
"So you're giving her up because of Manticore?" She leaned forward, looking him straight in the eye. "What does that say to the rest of us? Did you think of that?"
He shook his blond head vigorously as he scrambled to his feet. "Oh no, you're not putting that on me. Everyone has to make their own decisions, live their own lives. Otherwise we might as well still be sitting in the barracks listening to Lydecker drone on about duty and discipline. I'm doing what I think is right for my kid; end of story."
"But why is it right? What makes someone else the parent you think you can't be?"
No one else had phrased the question quite that way, and for a moment it floored him. He'd made a career out of thinking on his feet, though, and once he got started the words just seemed to pour out of him.
"Little things like, I don't know, a house where the air won't kill her school friends if she wants to bring one home. Does that sound like a good thing to you? Maybe a backyard to play with those friends in, instead of a break room. Or hey, how about a school where she can actually make those friends?"
Alec paused for a breath, but he suddenly noticed that Brin was the one who looked like all the air had just left her lungs. His friends, Brin included, had all worked so hard to create this haven for he and his daughter; Alec was ashamed when he realized how his comments must burn.
"Look, this place... it's great. This is the absolute best a bunch of really nice people could do for me, and I will always be grateful. The problem is that it's also the absolute best this place has to offer." Alec shrugged in a vain attempt to appear resigned. "And it's not enough. It shouldn't be enough."
"Says who?" she demanded.
For just a minute he hated her. Brin was forcing him to say things out loud that he could scarcely even think about. The only thing that saved the friendship growing between them was the trust she'd already placed in him. She'd shared some of her darkest memories of Manticore, and it wasn't her fault if she expected him to be at least as brave.
"Do I really need to spell it out?" Alec asked fiercely. "She's not safe with me."
Brin threw up her hands at his stubbornness. X5's were conditioned never to retreat, but at this point she wasn't sure whether to blame his carefully fashioned DNA for his refusal to admit he was wrong, or just that stupid Y-chromosome it was hitching a ride on.
"Who'd fight harder to protect her, Alec? Who would care more about her safety than you?"
He closed a door on the little voice in his head that said she was right in that, if nothing else. "The question is: who wouldn't put her in as much danger as I am? She can't escape being a transgenic, but no one needs to know she's my kid."
"But who knows who you are?" she asked plaintively. "Not to hammer down your ego or anything but you're not exactly..."
"How did you find out that Max was here?" he interrupted her briskly.
"On the news," she answered without thinking. "They had coverage of the..." she started to get a glimmer of where he was headed, and finished slowly, "of the siege. Of both of you during the siege."
Alec smiled grimly; he'd won that round, but he would've been much happier to be wrong.
"We made good coverage, Max and I; we looked normal. Hell, let's give Manticore some credit – we look better than normal." His voice deepened as he tried to imitate the news anchors that had made a mockery of his life. "Two dangerous transgenics who look just like you and me. They shop where you shop, drive down the same streets; they might've even delivered a package to your very house. Film at 11."
"Alec..."
"Every time either of us got anywhere near the gates," he continued, not acknowledging her attempt to interrupt, "we were caught on tape or in photographs. I still get stopped by people when I go outside Terminal City; so does Max. And our pictures made it all the way to that little hick town in Vermont where you were holed up, so what do you think the odds are that I can raise her without anyone noticing? Without anyone making her feel responsible because her father helped force the world to deal with transgenics?"
"Things aren't going to be like this forever." Brin heard the words coming out of her mouth, even though she wasn't sure if she really believed them. It mattered that Alec did, though; it mattered a lot. "She's too little to mind yet, or even notice. And by the time she does..."
He ran his hand through his hair and tried to force his tired mind to focus. The full effect of the day was beginning to hit now, and he was unprepared for the impact.
"Logan is going to find her a good home," he forced himself to say calmly. "Some place nice, and safe and... key word around these parts... *normal*. That means parents who know childhood from boot camp."
She ignored his last comment; if it was true for him it was true for all of them, and she wasn't willing to sell the rest of Terminal City down the river just yet. Instead she focused on the part of his argument that she could challenge.
"How do you know she'll be safe?" she demanded. "At least when Manticore was around we had a shot at staying alive if we were recaptured. But those government guys killed X7's in cold blood the day Manticore fell. Kids, Alec, just like her. You really expect a couple of ordinaries will be able to handle that kind of threat better than you?"
"I don't expect them to ever have to. I told you Logan was helping me out; he'll hide her where no one else can find her. She'll be just another anonymous transgenic."
"How can you be so sure?"
Alec really couldn't blame Brin for her skepticism; if he hadn't seen the guy in action he wouldn't have believed it either. Of course, he also had the benefit of knowing Logan's secret identity as Eyes Only, which considerably increased the cyber-journalist's stock in the sneaky market.
"He's got White's kid stashed away so deep even God couldn't find him. I'd say he's got the creds."
"He's got who where?"
Brin was momentarily sidetracked by the idea of Ames White having a child. She'd never seen White, but the way they all talked about him in Terminal City she'd developed a mental image of him as some sort of demon in wolf's clothing. She hadn't actually pictured him having anything but a tail under his clothes.
"Never mind." With difficulty she broke her brain away from thoughts of White and his possibly horned and hoofed offspring. "Forget White's kid; what about yours? What if you're wrong?"
"Don't fight me on this, Brin," he warned her. "Even before Terminal City... when I was living out with the ordinaries and pretending I was one of them... I knew then that I couldn't keep her when... if... I found her. It was always too dangerous."
His words made sense, in a heart-wrenching sort of way, but Brin wasn't buying the act. Alec was the consummate con man, but he was always his own hardest sell.
"This has nothing to do with the kind of life you can give her, does it? And it's not about the danger, because you've never run from a fight in your life; we're not wired that way."
Alec's mouth twisted with the effort of not correcting her impression. He remembered only too well the fight he had walked away from, and the price Rachel had paid for his cowardice. But he'd never told Brin about the girl he'd loved and then killed; he wasn't sure if he'd lacked the nerve or just the Scotch during those long late night talks. He liked to think he just hadn't wanted to weigh her down with his stuff.
"This is about the kind of life you led before her, and since," Brin continued in a gentler tone. "You don't think you deserve her."
Instinctively, Alec started to deny her contention, but then he realized it wasn't worth the effort. In some ways Brin didn't know him at all yet, but in others she understood him much better than he felt comfortable with. She seemed to recognize the dark parts he tried to hide from the world, maybe because she saw those same shadings in herself.
"Do you?" he asked wearily as he threw himself on the sofa again.
"You're asking the wrong person, pal," she answered quickly. "You know what I've done; are you saying I should just give up on the idea of having kids someday?"
"I told you, this is just about me," he protested.
"Yeah, you did tell me, but you're wrong. We were all there, Alec, not just you. We all did things we're going to regret for as long as our genetically enhanced memories last... lucky us. If you suddenly go all noble on us, you're taking everybody down with you."
"Now there's an interesting approach," he said sarcastically. "Don't tell me I'm wrong; just tell me I'm being selfish on top of it all."
"You are if you go ahead with this."
"Gee, thanks."
Brin slid across the sofa, until her knee was touching his, then she reached up and rested one hand on his arm as it lay across the top of the sofa. She wanted to offer a gentle, tactile reminder of her presence, but in her need to make him hear her, her light touch became a death grip.
"You think you're being selfish by keeping her," she said urgently, "because she makes you happy and she shouldn't. You're not supposed to be happy about something that happened to you because of Manticore." Alec looked away, but she put out her free hand and pressed it to his cheek, keeping the contact flowing between them. "Alec, letting her go is the selfish plan. Making her think she's not wanted when the truth is that you want her more than you feel like you deserve – that's selfish, trust me."
He smiled reluctantly at her last words, and turned back to look at her. "Hey, that's supposed to be my line. If there's going to be any 'trust me's' flying around, it's because I set them up."
She brushed her thumb gently along his cheekbone. "So who do you get to trust?"
He hadn't intended to kiss her. For all that Brin was a beautiful woman, Alec had no illusions about how much damage she'd suffered under the less than tender auspices of Manticore. He knew he was messed up enough for three people; he didn't need to take on anyone else's problems. So in all their time together, no matter how late the hour became, or how low the Scotch ran, he hadn't tried to make so much as move one on Brin.
Not until this very moment.
Brin's hand was still resting warmly against his cheek; he reached up and cupped it in his own, sliding her palm slowly down his face and around to his lips, sketching soft kisses against her wrist all the while.
Alec had focused his gaze on her arm, until he pressed one last kiss to the tip of her fingers and she made a soft, inarticulate sound at the loss of his lips against her skin. The noise broke his fierce concentration and Alec looked up, dragging his eyes up the long, slender column of her throat, past her slightly parted lips and on to the dark eyes fixed on him with such intensity it was almost palpable. For an instant his breath stopped, and he was almost afraid to move and break the spell.
Almost.
He moved just a millisecond before she did, gently cradling her head in his hands as he leaned forward to steal a kiss, or three. Brin molded her body into his as her hands came up around his back and clung for support.
Their lips met, tentatively at first, but with a growing need fighting for release. They had both learned to suppress their emotions from the harshest of teachers, and this moment went against everything they had been taught. Yet neither could deny the bond that had formed between them, and now that the first step had been taken to deepen it, neither wanted to stop or even slow it down.
Or listen for things like the apartment door opening.
"Alec, I just wanted to see if..." Max stopped dead in the doorway, every thought wiped clean from her head. Every thought, that is, but one. "What the hell are you doing?"
* * * * *
Brin heard Max's voice before Alec did, and quickly moved her hands to his chest to push herself away from him. He released her immediately, but she could tell by the confusion in his green eyes that he hadn't processed the reason for her apparent rejection.
"Max," she said quickly, half in greeting and half by way of explanation.
Alec turned around on the sofa so quickly that only genetically enhanced reflexes kept him from falling on the floor.
"Max, hey." He raised a hand in half-hearted welcome as he steadied himself on his feet. "What's up? Something going..."
His question was interrupted by a low but growing cry emanating from the child's room. In the space between two heartbeats, Alec ran through every possible catastrophe that could have befallen her, from the bed crashing down around her to White coming in through a sixth story window; each succeeding vision left him sicker and more helpless in its wake. One endless moment later reason asserted itself, leaving him almost shaking with relief, and angry that he should feel it so deeply.
"Nice going, Max," he grumbled as he brushed past her on the way to the closed bedroom door. "You can't just walk into a room; you have to make an entrance."
"I'm sorry," she said quickly. "I forgot she'd be..." the bedroom door closed, "asleep," her voice trailed off.
* * * * *
Alec closed the door firmly behind him, blocking out the sounds of any sisterly squabbling that might occur in the living room in his absence. His daughter was already frightened; she didn't need to hear transgenics in battle mode on top of that.
She was sitting up in her bed, her sobs turning to whimpers once she knew she wasn't alone. The lamp Brin had brought was turned to its lowest setting, offering comfort in a dark world, but apparently it had been insufficient for waking in a strange new room.
"See, didn't I tell you?" he asked softly as he sat down next to her on the bed. "You yell; I come running. Works like a charm, doesn't it, kiddo?"
She quickly crawled into his lap and he wrapped his arms around her, unconsciously rocking her back and forth as he tried to soothe her. "Did the noise scare you? That was just Aunt Max; she's kind of on the noisy side sometimes, but she'd never hurt you. She wasn't even trying to scare you; it was me she wanted to shake up."
49614 looked up at him, her fright momentarily forgotten in the face of his curious words.
"Don't worry about it," he said when he saw the look. "She just gets a little mad at me sometimes, but it never lasts long. Just like that noise didn't scare you for long, did it?"
"Not scared," she immediately protested.
"Of course you weren't," he quickly agreed, fighting back a smile at her indignant tone. "But if you were," he added, dragging out the last word, "it wouldn't be a big deal. Everybody gets scared sometimes."
She frowned, trying to fit this idea into the world as she now knew it. "Daddy not scared," she pronounced at last. This much, at least, she could be sure of.
He hugged her tighter and swallowed the sharp laugh her words called forth. She had no idea of the things he feared, of the thousand nightmares Manticore had planted in his brain and the newer ones spawned by Ames White and his band of merry Familiars. If he did the right thing and let her go, she never would know any of it. But the latest fear, the one that shouted at him in the quiet, was the possibility that he wouldn't be able to follow through on his promise to her. When it really counted, he was no longer sure he could do the right thing.
"Well, I'm not scared with you right here to cover my back. But even Daddy gets scared sometimes."
"I here," she said with satisfaction as she burrowed her face into his chest. "Daddy not scared."
Alec felt the heart beneath her cheek twist at her mumbled words. She wanted to protect him. He'd spent less than one full day with her in all her life and she still wanted to take care of him, just as he wanted to take care of her.
He kissed the top of her golden head and cleared his dry throat of any betraying quiver. "Listen, monkey, Daddy needs to check on your Aunt Max and Brin and make sure they haven't set up a boxing ring in the living room or something. And you need to go back to sleep." He scooped her up in his arms and carefully slipped her beneath her pink bedspread, gently laying her head on her small pillow. "Can you do that now?"
She nodded, her eyes already fluttering closed.
"I'll be right outside if you need me," he promised as he slid off the bed. He took a step towards the door, and then he hesitated as the pull of things left unsaid kept him from taking another.
Both Brin and Max thought that his daughter would grow up believing he didn't want her, that his attempts to give her a better life would seem like a rejection. And in the back of his mind were the words he once sounded off to Asha about emotional honesty. If he loved someone, he should say so. And if he wanted her...
"Monkey, hold off there for a second on the sleep thing." He hurried back to the bed and crouched down by 49614's head, gently tousling her soft hair until she opened her eyes. "Hey, sorry to wake you up again, but I need you to remember something for me; can you do that?"
She nodded her head against her pillow, and opened her mouth. Alec wasn't sure if she was actually planning on answering, but it didn't matter; her whole mouth was swallowed up by a huge yawn.
"I'm sorry, baby; I'll let you go back to sleep in a sec. But first I need to tell you something, and you have to remember it for me." He leaned in very close, fixing his hazel eyes firmly on her green ones. "I love you, monkey, and I want you. I have always wanted you to be a part of my life. No matter what anyone says or does, no matter what happens, you have to remember that Daddy loves you and wants you."
"Love you," she whispered, and he wasn't sure if she was repeating his words to her or offering her own pledge of affection. He supposed it didn't matter; the main thing was that he said it, and with her genetically enhanced memory, she would not forget it.
These thoughts carried him as far as the door, but they could support him no further. Alec turned again, his hand hovering just above the doorknob, and looked back at his daughter as she slept soundly in her new bed.
He could comfort himself with the fact that he had told her loved her and that she was wanted. But what did those words really mean to her? What comfort would they be for her on the first night she spent alone in the bed of her new home, wherever that might turn out to be? And what about when she turned 5 and he wasn't there to walk her to school on her first day? Or at 14, when he wasn't there to glower at the boy who dared to take her on her first date? Wait, no, make that 16 when she went on her first date, because if she were only 14 he'd have to do more than glower at the filthy little bundle of hormones who dared...
STOP!
Alec dragged his thoughts away from that part of the future with difficulty. In his mind's eye all he could see was a junior version of Max's older brother Zack, looking at his little girl the same way that Zack looked at Max, but the image was too horrifying to withstand.
She was going to grow up, go to college, get a job, get married maybe, have some kids of her own, and all of that she would have to do knowing what he'd told her instead of knowing him. He could write her a note to explain everything, but with her memory he might just as well tell her now and let her pull the words out of her memory whenever she needed the touchstone. It wouldn't matter anyway; they were still just words. It was clearer to him now more than ever why he had to give her up; even in this, the closest thing he had ever done to a pure act, the best he had to offer was still...
Just words.
* * * * *
While Max was staring at the closed door, Brin was surreptitiously smoothing hair and clothing, trying to remove any reminders of what had caused the uproar in the first place. By the time Max turned back to her, Brin felt calm, cool and presentable.
At least she did until Max spoke.
"So that's how Manticore taught you to apologize?" Max said sarcastically. "With your tongue?"
Brin was taken aback, but she recovered quickly. "Would you prefer I tried another body part? The last time I heard, tongues have it hands down when it comes to talking."
Max shook her head, the strands of her long dark hair moving like switches across her rigid back. "That wasn't talking going on when I walked in."
"Exactly why did you just walk in, little sister? Ever hear of knocking?"
"Oh please, like I haven't walked in on Alec with a girl before," Max scoffed. "He's not exactly the shy type, you know."
"Then why are you so mad at me?" Her older sister eyed Max narrowly. "You're not jealous, are you?"
"He wishes," Max answered with a snort. "Me and Alec are nothing like that." In the back of her head the words mocked her, reminding her of similar ones once uttered about she and Logan. "We're friends," she added defiantly. "At least as much as I can be friends with someone who doesn't even tell me he's got a kid out there somewhere."
"We all have our secrets, Max," Brin said wearily. "Especially about Manticore."
"We can't afford secrets anymore," Max snapped back. "We are all in this together now, and one person's secrets could take everybody down."
"Words to live by, Max," Alec said as he reentered the living room. "I've been thinking a lot about those lately. Words, I mean." He carefully closed the bedroom door behind him, but remained standing guard in front of it, while his eyes moved swiftly from one woman's set face to the other. "So, what'd I miss?"
There was a distinct moment of silence before Brin cleared her throat and answered, "Oh, just a little chat on the importance of knocking."
Alec nodded to her slightly, mentally awarding her points for being the first one to think up a tactful retreat. "Yeah, Logan hates when we do that to him. I used to think it was pretty funny seeing him get all mad about it, but I'm starting to think he might be right, at least as far as teaching the munchkin some manners." His gaze shifted to Max, communicating something deeper than his light words conveyed. "I think we should give that knocking idea a whirl. See what all the buzz is about."
"Sure." Max tossed her hair over her shoulder and tried not to look as hurt as she felt. "Yeah, 'cause I'd hate to walk in on you gettin' busy on the couch before your kid does."
Alec laughed, although inwardly he cringed at the image. "I don't think seeing one kiss would have scarred her for life, Maxie. After the stuff she's already been through... well, like our good buddy Mole would say: this is chump change."
He knew the words were a mistake as soon as they were out of his mouth, but it was too late to call them back. As usual when he tried to deal with two women at the same time, smoothing one's ruffled feathers only served to set the other one on fire.
"Chump change?" Brin smiled sourly at him. "Funny, I had you pegged for a sweet talker, too. My mistake."
She marched past him, head held high, but Alec managed to grab her arm on the back swing and held on tight.
"Brin, I didn't mean it like that," he said softly. He tugged gently on her arm until she reluctantly turned around to face him. "Thanks for the Scotch, and for the talk. I can't say you changed my mind, but it means a lot that you tried."
She started to open her mouth to answer, but Alec laid a finger lightly across her lips as he took a step closer. "I'd thank you for the kiss too," he added in a voice just above a whisper, "but I think we probably should wait on that until we don't have an audience."
Brin looked deep into his eyes to see if he really meant what he was saying, but it suddenly occurred to her that she really didn't know Alec well enough to do more than guess and hope. That translated to trust; a trait not bred into Manticore progeny. But it was one she was going to have to learn if she wanted this relationship, or her relationship with her sister, to survive.
"Okay," she whispered back, her reply creating the lightest of kisses on Alec's finger.
* * * * *
Static. Nothing but static.
Logan put his cell phone down next to his keyboard on the battered wooden desk, nervously tapping his finger on the plastic casing as he tried to plan out his next move.
He'd noticed the first signs of disturbance as soon as he sat down at his computer. The printout from his intrusion detection software was showing several attempts to drill through his firewalls; nothing had gotten in, naturally, but the very fact that someone tried spoke volumes.
The house itself showed no obvious signs of a break-in, although it was possible these people were just very good. But outside they hadn't been quite so careful; when he'd taken an apparently casual stroll onto the porch he'd spied small traces of debris from the work they'd done on the phone lines.
So he didn't use the phone, not the one in the house at least. He'd used his cell phone to make the calls he needed, until White's men threw out some kind of jamming signal and that line of communication was cut.
It was all compromised now, or soon would be; the trick would be to use that to their advantage. White would know Alec planned to give up his daughter, and if White was the one who engineered her return that would have to come as a nasty surprise. Logan could only hope it would be enough to make the agent lose his cool and act prematurely; it was their only real chance to find out his plan before it came down on all their heads.
With that thought in mind he made himself pick up the portable phone from the widow sill, leaving his cell on the desk. Time to start making calls, the kind he hadn't planned on making for at least a week, if ever. He didn't want to start shopping around for new parents for 49614 until he had to, not until it was clear that Alec wasn't going to change his mind. Logan couldn't bear to raise that kind of false hope in good people, but he simply couldn't see another way out right now. He could only hope that later, when this was all over and he could explain, his friends would understand all lies were told to save a little girl.
He only wished he could be sure what they were saving her from. If White had her in his control and then let her go, there had to be more at stake than rounding up transgenics. Then again, when wasn't there more to White than met the eye?
* * * * *
"Just what the hell were you thinking, Alec?" Max had remained silent as Brin was leaving, but she turned on him almost the instant they were alone. "Or should I ask what you were thinking with?"
"It was one kiss, Max, between two adults." He raised his index finger and waved it in the air to emphasize his next point. "Fully clothed adults, in case you hadn't noticed."
"Well thank God for that much," she grumbled. "But it was still stupid, even by the laws of Alec-land."
In truth, Alec was beginning to think the same thing himself. He was the first to admit that loneliness made him a little reckless sometimes, and all the time he'd spent today contemplating giving up the daughter it had taken so long to find had left him unusually vulnerable.
He'd be damned if he'd admit that to Max, though.
"Why?" He threw up his hands as he sank down onto the sofa. "Enlighten me, oh wise woman of love."
"Love?" she asked sharply.
He flushed as his hands fell to his side. "You know what I meant. Why is it so wrong for Brin and I to share one measly little kiss?"
"It didn't look measly, Alec."
"Well thanks for the good review, Maxie, but can you just cut to the chase? Or do you not actually have a point to make beyond hassling me?"
"Fine." She began restlessly pacing the room, much as Alec had done less than a half-hour before. "You spend all this time the past couple of weeks trying to get me to see Brin's side, make me see that she's confused and hurting over what she did to Tinga. Make me see that she's messed up and needs all this time and understanding." She stopped pacing and wheeled around to confront him. "Then on the day that you're completely flipping out, you grab onto her like she's suddenly the world's best anchor."
"I am not completely flipping out," he immediately protested. A moment later he added in a quieter voice, "But maybe, just maybe, there might be a little something to the rest of what you said."
Max crossed her arms over her chest and stared down her nose at him. "Oh, you mean the part where you used her?"
Alec quickly got to his feet, his guilt beginning to give way to anger. "No, the part where she's not ready to be anybody's anchor. If," he raised an eyebrow at Max, "someone was in the market for an anchor."
"Which you're not?" she challenged.
"I needed a friend to talk to," he said impatiently. "Somebody who's done a few things she really, really would like to take back too."
She saw an opening and seized it with determination. If it was Alec's new goal in life to come up with ways to wreck his future happiness, then her job description just expanded beyond the previous butt-saving limitations.
"But you haven't done anything. Not yet anyway."
He looked at her in disbelief. "You know that's not true."
"I'm not talking about Manticore, Alec; I'm talking about you." Her voice was low and soft, and just a little wistful. "No matter how much I bust your ass, I know how to tell the difference between what you want to do and what you did because you just wanted to stay alive."
"I did what I had to do." He pondered the idea for a moment, rolling it over and over in his head to see it from all angles. But the view never changed; it never had and it never would. "You know I've told myself that a lot. In fact, I've told you that a lot." He eyed her speculatively. "I just never thought you bought it.
"I think I started buying it the day I realized you didn't," she offered quietly. "And maybe it helped that we both know there were worse things they could have done to you than re-indoctrination."
Zack was in both their minds, and Tinga. But it still wasn't enough for Alec.
"I can't break it out that way anymore, Max; I wish I could. Life would sure be a lot simpler."
"Don't screw this up. Doesn't get much simpler than that." She pointed to 49614's closed bedroom door. "Your little girl is still right there in that room, not with some strange family god knows where learning to milk chickens."
"You really think a lot of Logan's friends, don't you?"
"Don't change the subject," she snapped, fighting the usual thought-derailing effect his sarcasm had on her. "She's still here and you haven't done anything more than yap about some stupid plan to give her up. She doesn't even know, and we... Logan and Joshua and me... we'll never tell her. It's done." She mimicked tossing something away. "Over. I won't even bring it up the next time you get a dumb idea."
He sank back down onto the sofa, the energy that had fueled his anger suddenly deserting him.
"As tempting of an offer as that is, Max... pass."
Max sat down next to him on the sofa, turning sideways so that she could face him. She'd tried wheedling him, and she'd tried bullying him, but nothing seemed to make a dent. She was obviously going to have to try the one thing she found hardest to express, especially to Alec.
Simple compassion.
"If you do this, you're going to hate yourself, Alec, and I can't stand around and watch you do it. I'm not saying it wouldn't be right for somebody else, but I've seen you with her and I know you can't do this without ripping yourself apart."
"I'll be okay, Max. I'm just about indestructible."
His smile was as quiet and empty as his voice; if she hadn't been looking straight at him, Max never would have believed it was Alec speaking.
"Sure," she joked nervously, "as long as I'm around to save your ass."
"Do me a favor; don't save me now."
She shrugged and turned up her palms. "Can't help it. It's like a reflex by now."
Alec leaned towards her, all pretense of casual bantering at an end. "I asked you once before to leave me alone. You didn't, and I'm grateful. But this situation is nothing like that one. I'm telling you to stay out of it and I mean it."
"Alec..."
"Back off, Max."
When she first met Alec, Max thought the only time he got serious was when he tried to kill someone. Actually sometimes even then he let his sarcastic side get the better of him. But she'd seen a lot of changes in Alec over the past year and she knew there were times when the jokes, and the smiles, and what Logan liked to call the 'happy-go-lucky sociopath' demeanor, all fell away, leaving the darkness and confusion Joshua had seen so clearly from the beginning.
This was one of those times.
"I can't," Max said softly as she slid off of the sofa and stood up. Looking down at her one-time enemy, she tried to remember when exactly it was that he morphed into one of her best friends. Into family. "You wouldn't let me drown; how am I supposed to watch you go under without even trying to save you?"
He reached out and grabbed her wrist, his fingers biting into the soft flesh. She was forcing him to be honest, not something he would easily forget. "If warning you won't work, then Max... I'm begging you. This is already taking all I've got; I can't be fighting you on top of that."
She gently but firmly pulled her arm from his grasp. Then to Alec's surprise, Max bent down and dropped a kiss on the top of his head, just as he had done to his little girl when he put her to bed.
"I'm sorry," she whispered.
Sorry for what he had to do or what she would have to, Alec couldn't be sure. He couldn't ask her, either; Max was gone before he could find the words.
* * * * *
To Be Continued