Author's Note: Hey, I updated in a week! Things will start coming a lot faster now, because my muse has finally woken up. I just hope it keeps up.

Disclaimer: I don't own a damn thing except the clothes on my back.

Family Relations

By Be Boring

Chapter 16: Pulling Rank

When Jondy came down for breakfast at 9:00 the next day, Zack was already sitting at the table with a bowl of oatmeal in front of him that he was eyeing doubtfully. He looked up and smiled when she came in, then glanced back down at his bowl. "Shayna insisted on making it for me, but I don't think she knows I'm not a fan of oatmeal. I guess I'll have to eat it sooner or later, no one went out for doughnuts today."

Jondy sat down across from him. "Where is everyone? Kiera's usually the one I see down here."

"She's sleeping in today. So is Shayna, actually. She went for a nap on the couch, and she's been out like a log ever since. Ben has been in and out, but he's been spending a lot of time in the basement. I think he just likes that it's cooler down there."

She got up and opened the fridge, but there was hardly anything there. "I guess it's oatmeal for me, too."

Zack shoved his bowl away. "No, why don't you go out and get something to eat? Bring something back, while you're at it. I just don't think I'll be able to get this down. There's some money in my jacket in my room, maybe bring back more doughnuts, or even muffins. Sound good?"

"Better than oatmeal," she replied with a roll of her eyes. She was glad things were comfortable between them, she hadn't been sure about how things would go after last night. Maybe the fact that everything had been mutual made a difference. They both knew there was something sitting just beneath the surface, but right now just wasn't the time to expand on that. She went and got the money, then headed out. Osage was an extremely tiny town, but there was a good enough bakery in the back of their gas station. She picked up a few doughnuts and some muffins, surprised at just how large they were. They were somewhere around the size of a softball.

"Excuse me," she asked the teenage girl behind the counter. "Is there any place around here where I could get my hair cut? I've been looking for a new style."

The girl glanced at Jondy's hair. "Are you sure? I really like the style you have now, do you really want to change it?"

"Yeah, I'm getting bored with it. So, do you know of anybody?"

The girl pulled out a pad of paper and started scribbling down an address. "Yeah, my aunt is a beautician. She can do anything you want, she's completely overloaded with supplies that she's never going to get to use. She lives just on the other side of town, not that it's a long walk, and it's really easy to spot her house. It's freshly painted light blue, and it's the only one that looks like it isn't falling apart. You'll find it easily enough." She ripped off the strip of paper and set it down on the counter.

Jondy smiled as she picked up the paper. "Thanks, I really appreciate this." On her way back to the house, she pulled out one of the giant muffins and started eating it happily. Things were going so good right now. They were out of Manticore, Shayna and the baby were perfectly healthy, Kiera was safe, and she and Zack were getting closer. Of course there were bad things too, but she didn't even want to think about them. Changing her hair was the first step in protecting herself. The other thing was getting rid of her barcode. Zack was right, she needed to start getting it lasered off regularly. It would hurt, sure, but it was worth it by now. Manticore knew too much about her, and any defining mark that she could get rid of right now would give her an advantage.

Zack was sound asleep at the table when she came back, snoring softly with his arms dangling. She set the doughnuts and muffins down next to him and searched around for some paper and a pen. Once she had found some, she scribbled out a brief note saying that she was going out and might not come back for a little while, but that she would definitely be back in time for lunch. She didn't want anyone to know she was getting a haircut until she got back, she wanted it to be a surprise. Once again, she was walking through Osage, not even coming close to breaking a sweat by the time she reached the beautician's house. Hoping it wasn't too early to be disturbing anyone at home, she tentatively rang the doorbell. It didn't take long before she heard footsteps coming down the stairs, but the woman who answered the door didn't look like she'd just woken up. In fact, she was dressed up almost like she was planning on going out. She smiled politely at Jondy. "Can I help you?"

Jondy smiled back, wanting to make a good impression in case she was interrupting anything important. "Yes, your niece told me you cut hair, and I'd really like to change mine. Is now a good time?"

The woman's smile seemed genuine enough as she gestured for Jondy to come inside. "Of course, dear, I don't have any plans at the moment. Amanda called and told me I might be getting a customer today, so I actually have been getting some of my things ready. Sit down and make yourself at home for now, dear. We'll cut your hair on the linoleum in the kitchen so that I don't have too much of a mess. By the way, I'm Mrs. Morelen."

Jondy followed her into a fairly large kitchen, with at least enough room for four people to work comfortably and not bump into each other. "Is there a possibility you could dye my hair as well? This color is getting old."

Mrs. Morelen glanced up at her hair. "Old? It looks to me like you just need to redo the roots from the last time you dyed it, otherwise it looks fine to me. What color were you thinking of?"

"I'm not really sure, actually. What do you think would look good?"

She turned and studied Jondy for a minute, then replied, "I think strawberry blonde would suit you nicely, with perhaps some darker red streaks mixed in. What would you think if I gave you a much shorter haircut? I would at least shorten your bangs to chin length, then let the rest be just a little shorter so that you can flare it out behind your head. I think that would look very cute on you, what do you think?"

Jondy wasn't sure she wanted this woman seeing her barcode, but the idea seemed good. "Sure, why not? Do you have a bathroom I could use before we get started?"

"Right up the hallway to your left, dear, and first door on the left."

"Thanks." She hurried into the bathroom, shut the door, and immediately started searching for some sort of makeup. It was easy to find, Mrs. Morelen had an entire drawer of makeup. Working as quickly as possible, she managed to cover up the barcode satisfactorily. She smiled with relief when she read the 'water proof' label on the bottle in her hand. That was good, because she knew her neck would be getting wet soon anyway. When she had put everything back in its place, she reached over and flushed the toilet, turned on the faucet for nearly half a minute, and headed back to the kitchen. As she had expected, it took quite a while to finish styling her hair, but by the time it was done, she was grinning at herself in the mirror. How was it that something as simple as a new hairstyle could make such a dramatic difference? She would have thought the new look would make her look more like a little kid, but somehow it made her look very mature and grown up. As she gazed into the mirror, she was able to take in all the changes she had gone through during the least few months. She vaguely remembered that she had started growing again shortly before she was recaptured, and it looked as though she had finished. At least an inch or two had been added onto her height, and her curves were definitely there now. She couldn't wait to get back into some of her normal clothes and see the difference there.

As she was thanking Mrs. Morelen for doing such a good job, she finally had to ask, "Is there anywhere nearby where I can have a tattoo removed? I just broke up with my boyfriend, and I don't really want his name on my hip anymore."

Mrs. Morelen seemed taken aback, but she quickly recovered. "My son-in-law in Upton runs a tattoo parlor, and I think he takes them off as well. I'm surprised he knows how to run any of those lasering machines." From the look on her face, Jondy could tell that she didn't think too much of her son-in-law. Before she had to sit through a rant about how unworthy he was for her daughter, which Jondy was sure was coming, she quickly thanked Mrs. Morelen again, got the address for the tattoo parlor, and left. She had taken quite a bit of the money from Zack's jacket, so she had more than enough to pay Mrs. Morelen, and was sure she had enough to pay for getting her barcode removed. As she walked down the street, she chose the first car that actually had its keys in it and headed for Upton. It wasn't far, and she clearly remembered passing through it on their way to Osage. It also wasn't very big, but it was still quite a bit larger than its miniscule neighbor. It wasn't hard to find the parlor, and there was absolutely no business inside, so a very heavily tattooed young man took her directly to the back. From the wedding ring on his finger, she guessed he was the disliked son-in-law, but other than his startling appearance he was really very nice. He babbled cheerily as he prepared to start the lasering, and even hummed quietly while he worked. Yes, it hurt like all hell, but it was such a relief once it was off. It was so strange to look at her neck in the mirror and not see her own barcode standing out boldly on her skin, taunting her cruelly with the truth of her origin. It wasn't enough that she knew she was made in a test tube, but she had to have the physical proof of it as well.

By the time she arrived back at the safe house, she was at least an hour past when everyone else would have eaten lunch. They all seemed to like to eat right at noon, and it was already quarter after one. Kiera was sitting on the couch in the living room, apparently waiting for her to get home. "Sorry I'm late," Jondy apologized immediately, lowering herself into a rocking chair near the couch. "Some opportunities opened up for me and I couldn't pass them up."

Kiera shrugged without much concern. "I wasn't really worried, but Zack wanted me to wait for you to come back. I knew you would have a good reason for not coming back when you said you would. I see the hair has changed, but you said 'opportunities,' as in plural. What else did you change?"

Jondy turned so that Kiera could clearly see her neck. "I got my barcode removed. I'm going to have to keep up on that now that my hair's so short. I knew Zack would force me to change my appearance again now that Lydecker has seen me again, so I decided to do it before he gave the order. I don't like taking orders very much."

Kiera grinned, admiring her hair. "Yeah, so I've noticed. You're much better at giving them than anything else. It was impressive, the way you handled things the other day. I have to admit that I didn't completely understand Zack's choice of you as SIC back when he first did it, not to offend you or anything, but now I see why he did it."

"I take it you didn't think I'd be able to handle the responsibility?"

"Yeah, but you sure proved me wrong. We never would have made it out of there if it wasn't for you. I think Zack's still in awe of you a little bit, because he can't seem to get over how quickly you took care of everything, even without having the majority of your memories. You know, I know it's going to make you uncomfortable again, but I have to say it. I think he has some pretty strong feelings for you. You should see the change that comes over him every time he talks about you. He looks so much happier, much happier than I've ever seen him. I think that besides any extra feelings he may have for you, it's just been a good thing that he has someone to work with. Now that he's not doing this all alone, it takes a lot of pressure off of him, and now that we know you're fully capable of handling the job, it's a big relief for him. He actually has time to stop and breathe now, maybe even have a little bit of a life. Maybe you both can have a little bit of a life." She wiggled her eyebrows mischievously.

Jondy rolled her eyes, holding back her own grin. "You're absolutely incorrigible, you know that? With how butch you are, I never would have thought you'd be so nosy, especially about my love life. Go bug somebody else, or at least talk about something else."

"Well, I haven't said yet that I really like your hair. It's really cute on you. Zack will probably like it, too," she teased, ducking as Jondy threw one of the couch cushions at her, then stood up and walked off. Automatically, she found herself walking towards Zack's room. I may as well go in and see him, he'll want to know why I was late.

Zack sat up as soon as she came in, then settled back again. His eyes flashed over her hair and the happy but slightly guilty look on her face. "I was planning on chewing you out as soon as you got back," he admitted, "because now is definitely not the time to go running around and coming home late, but you obviously were doing something constructive. I like your hair, it suits you. What else did you have done? That haircut couldn't have taken so long."

She sat down in the recliner, shaking her head a little bit to feel the lighter weight of her hair. It was strange to have it so short, it bounced all over the place now like a wig of strawberry blonde springs. "I had my barcode removed. I'll have to do that regularly now, with my neck always showing the way it is now. Don't say 'it's about time,' this was something I just had to do in my own time." At the feigned innocence on his face, she rolled her eyes. "Don't act like you weren't going to say it, I know you were. I also wanted to ask you about a few more things to fill in my memory. I'm having a hard time remembering the time when I was SIC. How long was I SIC before Shayna and I were captured, and how did you find out that we were at Manticore?"

"You were working with me for about two months before you were captured, and Ben was the one who told me Lydecker had caught you. Don't you remember giving him your phone?" She shook her head, staring back at him blankly. "Well, you went to Shayna's house to check on her, and Lydecker's men were already there. They hid when you went in, but you started to get suspicious. You came across Ben hiding in the bathroom, and he told you that the place was surrounded. When you figured out that the three of you couldn't escape, you forced Ben to stay hidden, gave him your cell phone, and told him that hitting redial would reach me. Then you sat down on the couch as the soldiers started getting into the house and forced yourself to forget everything. It was just a bad situation, you couldn't have possibly known that Lydecker was at Shayna's house, and there was no way to escape. For how badly things could have turned out, I think we ended up with the best scenario. When Ben called me, he told me everything that had happened. He even told me about Shayna lying about me being the father of the baby. I've got to admit, that surprised me quite a bit. I didn't know she would do something so underhanded to get back at me for separating her from Ben."

"She feels bad about it now. Have you talked to her?"

He shook his head. "No, she's been avoiding me since we got here. I'd appreciate it if you could convince her to come in here and talk to me. I don't want to fight with her, but I want to understand everything about why she did it. I knew she was having a harder time than everyone, with Ben as the exception, adjusting to the outside world, but I never would have thought she could do something like that. I guess I don't really know her that well."

"The way I see it, nobody knows much about her, and that's because I don't think she knows much about herself. I know how she's feeling, it's how I felt right after the escape. You realize that you're not a soldier following orders anymore, and then suddenly you're struggling to find out who you are without Manticore. She just hasn't gotten everything sorted out yet. I think this baby will give her a big push towards figuring it all out. You know, she feels so bad, I wouldn't be surprised if she named you godfather to the baby."

He smiled faintly. "That's what I'd be anyway, whether she gave me the title or not. If anything happened to her, I'd take care of the baby, or maybe see if one of the others was interested. I just know we can't set a second generation X5 up for adoption. What would happen if it started showing our advanced development? Manticore would swoop right in and take it away. No adoptive parents would know how to handle an X5 child."

"I'm hoping Shayna can do it. It's a pretty big responsibility, and I don't she's realized that yet. I think I'll be making a lot of visits to her house to help her out."

Suddenly, Zack looked a little uncomfortable. He gazed down at his hands, then back up at her. "That's another thing I wanted to talk to you about. After yesterday, I'm not sure it's appropriate for us to be living together again just yet, and I was thinking of asking you to live with Shayna until she is well settled in, maybe even until the baby is a few months old."

Jondy couldn't believe what he was saying. "So, you want me to live with Shayna for half a year? What about the others? Do you really want to go back to taking care of them yourself?"

"There's nothing saying you can't go see them, it's just that your actual home will be with Shayna, not me. I'll make sure you're kept up to date with their locations, the majority of them moved while you were in Manticore in case they were compromised. The only ones who didn't move were Kiera and Tinga, which didn't work out too well for Kiera. I'll have to give you everyone's addresses and phone numbers again, and you can talk to them all to help get your memories of your past visits with them back. As soon as I can move around well enough again, I want to get you and Shayna set up at a good safe house. In fact, I thought it might be smart to just have you stay here. It's right under Manticore's nose, which they won't expect, and people here don't ask questions. That's why I liked having this house so much. It was just for the purpose it's serving right now, to be a safe place to stay if I had to get anyone out of Manticore."

She knew he was hoping she wouldn't ask her next question, which was precisely why she asked it. "How much am I going to get to see you?"

He fidgeted slightly in his spot, reminding her of Jason whenever she had asked him where the stale cookies she had stolen from school had gone. "I'm not sure, but you can call me anytime, and I'm sure I'll stop in plenty of times. I'd like to be around when she has the baby."

"Zack, I really hope you know I'm not happy about this. I love Shayna, but I'm not sure I want to live with her for so long. I'd really much rather live with you." There, she'd said what she really wanted to say. Maybe before the ordeal with Manticore happened she would have been fine with it, but not now. Was he trying to push her away? He'd said that living together wasn't appropriate after yesterday, but she didn't see why not. If he was too uncomfortable with his feelings, she had no problem leaving things diplomatic between them. Or was he trying to stay away from the temptation of his own feelings? She didn't know or care, she just knew she didn't want to be separated from him so soon after being reunited.

"It'll be fine, you'll see. After we know Shayna and her baby are going to be fine together, I'll relocate them and you can live with me again. Is that better?"

She shrugged. "Does that mean that if they happen to be fine a week after the baby's born, it can happen then?"

"No, I'd be happier if you stuck around until Shayna really knows what she's doing. Like you said before, a baby is a big responsibility, and you're the most responsible person I know. If anyone can get her going straight, it's you. Don't think I'm trying to get rid of you, because believe me, I'm not. It's been great having you around. If you try to put up too much of a fight about his, I'll pull rank on you and force you to do it, which I really don't want to have to do. Tell you what, maybe before everyone here gets relocated, you and I can go back out to the cabin in Maine? It'll give you a relaxation period before you're back to work." She sensed he wanted to say more, but was holding himself back. Had he been about to add that it would be a chance for them to be alone for a while before they were separated? After that, how much opportunity would they have to just be around each other? Shayna would always be there during his visits, there really wasn't a way to get rid of her. She hadn't realized how much she liked spending time alone with Zack. They were so comfortable with each other, and she felt like she could actually talk to him about most things. Other than her extra growth, he knew pretty much everything about her.

After a few minutes of silence, Zack tentatively asked, "Could you go get Shayna? Like I said before, I really want to talk to her."

Jondy sighed and nodded, leaving the room without another word to him. Shayna was sitting in the living room talking to Ben, but she quickly agreed to talk to Zack. Jondy suspected that she wanted to get her apology to him over and done with. Once she was gone, Jondy sat down the spot that Shayna had just vacated. Ben looked like he was preparing himself for more insults about his way of life. "Is there something you wanted to talk about?"

To his surprise, she smiled. "Yeah, I've been meaning to ask you how things have been going after the escape. Other than the obvious, I want to know everything else. Is that okay?"

He smiled back. "Sure, I guess, if you really want to know. Any reason in particular you're asking?"

What was she supposed to say? "I thought I should get to know you before we drop you off on the side of the road somewhere." Not likely. "Just curious." As he started enthusiastically telling her about his first set of foster parents, she settled back in her seat and listened patiently. It was too bad that he had gone insane. If he wasn't a killer, he'd be fun to be around. His life just hadn't worked out for the best. She just hoped that hers wouldn't go downhill now as well. Being separated from Zack, how was she supposed to handle that? Now the only thing she was really looking forward to was the birth of Shayna's baby and her trip with Zack to Maine. She just felt guilty that it was actually the latter that brightened her up more.