Disclaimer: Unfortunately, the only things I own of Dark Angel are the DVDs.
Family Relations
By Be Boring
Chapter 18: Looking Ahead
Jondy lay quietly on her side, gazing at Zack peacefully. He was looking right back, still breathing hard. The silence seemed to last hours, but Jondy didn't mind. She was taking the opportunity to take in every detail about him that she could; everything from the bone structure in his face, the rarely-seen affection in his eyes, and the gentle rise and fall of his chest as his breathing began to slow down finally, to the three strands of hair that continued to ignore their companions and hang right down between his eyes. No detail was too small for her to overlook, she wanted to remember it all. Even his scent was permanently etched into her mind, never to be let loose. Zack was the first to break the silence. "How do you feel? I tried to be careful, but I wasn't sure if I hurt you or not."
She smiled back and replied softly, "No, you didn't hurt me. I'm fine. In fact, I've never felt better. What about you? This might be considered a serious moment of weakness for you, giving into your emotions like this."
"I can deal with that. I know I don't usually like to deal with emotions, but I'm glad I took the chance this time. This might be the happiest I've ever felt."
Those were strong words, coming from Zack. Even though it didn't surprise her to know he felt that way, it was extremely out of character for him to admit it. Now that he had opened up a bit, she wondered if she should as well. The words she wanted to say were much stronger than what he'd said, though. What if it pushed him away? Still, she had to give it a shot. She leaned forward and kissed him warmly on the cheek, placed her lips next to his ear and whispered, "I love you, Zack," and slid forward to lie against him comfortably. He rolled onto his back so she could partially lie across his chest, but he remained quiet. There you go, Jondy, moving too fast again as usual. Now you've gone and scared him. What if he decides this is all too much for him to deal with and pushes you back to just being his work partner? What will you do then? Jondy desperately wished the little voice in her head would shut up, but it had a point. What would she do if Zack panicked and backed out of this relationship before it really got started? She knew she wouldn't be able to do it. Maybe before, but not now that they had made love. She had given herself to him in the most powerful way she knew of. She simply wouldn't be able to deal with it if Zack decided this wasn't what he wanted.
They lay there for a long time, neither making so much as a peep, but Zack's fingers moved up and started gently toying with her short hair. She wasn't sure if this was a positive sign or not, he could either be trying to express that he felt the same way, or trying to work up the courage to break it off with her. Finally, he moved his hand to her chin and tilted it up so he could see her eyes. "I love you, too. It's always been that way. I've loved you since you were brought in from the Manticore nursery, just like I loved everyone else." Jondy stiffened, preparing herself for a hard blow. He was going to tell her that he loved her, but not in the way she desperately wanted him to love her, she was sure of it. "As we've all grown up, I continued to love everyone the same, until we started working together. I don't know when it happened, but I think it became really clear after you were captured that I felt differently about you. I don't know, maybe until that time I'd managed to convince myself that I cared about you so much just because we had spent so much time together, but once you were taken away from me, I couldn't lie to myself. I nearly went off the deep end. It took all my willpower to contact everyone and let them know you had been captured and they would have to move, without letting on how much it was killing me. I kept expecting you to walk through the door at any moment, laughing and telling me not to worry so much. To tell you the truth, I don't think there would have been a rescue mission if it had just been Shayna. It was you I went in there for."
A tear slipped down Jondy's cheek, which landed on his collarbone before she could stop it. She knew he had noticed, but he didn't make any move to wipe it away. She could have jumped for joy, but there was one more thing she wanted. He had said the words she wanted to hear, but it seemed to take away some of their importance when he followed it up with how he felt about the others. Why couldn't he just have said the words straight out like she had? It seemed that her question was in her eyes, because he kissed her lightly on the forehead and murmured, "In other words, I love you too."
Jondy couldn't help it, the tears started coming faster and she wrapped her arms around his neck, overwhelmed by everything that was happening. Ever since she had heard her first fairy tale at age ten, when she had been the middle child in her room at the Casteau mansion and the older girl, Miranda, had read her Cinderella, she had wanted that kind of love for herself. At the time she believed it would happen, but as she grew older and the harsh realities of life set in, she started to forget about that tiny dream. She lowered her goal to merely being normal, then when she realized that couldn't be achieved, she settled for pretending to be ordinary. Without even realizing it, her dreams had started picking up again. True, she didn't live a normal life, but it was normal for an X5. She was no different than them, and it was a relief to realize that she wasn't the only one dealing with the pain of knowing she was very different. All teenagers went through that stage, but none of them were quite as different as the X5s. Then, when she had come to terms with her new life as an active X5, Zack had fulfilled her original dream. Now that she thought about it, this wasn't very different from the tale of Cinderella. With Manticore forcing her to follow instructions and the Casteau's making her feel like she was cheap and unimportant, she rose to have a powerful position and someone to share it with, or rather, someone who was sharing their powerful position with her. Princess wasn't the word she would use, but in this post-Pulse world, SIC was pretty damn close to it.
Zack grunted uncomfortably as she wept against his neck, evidently not sure if he should attempt to comfort her or not, because he didn't really know what had made her start crying. When her tears finally slowed, he joked feebly, "If I had known you were going to get this emotional about it, I would have waited to say it until I had a tissue at hand."
She laughed and wiped away the dampness from her face. "Sorry, I guess this is all pretty new for me. It just all piled up on me there for a second." She rolled onto her back, then moved her hands to her stomach as a loud growl rumbled through it. "Are you as hungry as I am?"
He sat up and reached for his clothes. "Probably hungrier. I think we still have some leftovers from last night, so how about supper for breakfast?"
Jondy smiled and grabbed her clothes off the floor. "A little unorthodox, but alright." They walked into the kitchen, standing much closer together than usual as they heated up the remaining pork chops in the microwave. Instead of sitting across from each other at the table, they sat right next to one another. Jondy found herself smiling for absolutely no reason as the morning wore on, and she noticed Zack doing the same. They were acting like kids on Christmas morning, so happy that they could hardly contain themselves, but without a clue of how to express it. It would be somewhat immature to jump up in the air and squeal and giggle like a little girl, but it was what Jondy felt like doing.
When breakfast had been cleared away, Jondy glanced towards the bathroom. Should she dare suggest it? Of course. "Hey, are you up for a shower?" Zack didn't even get his chance to reply, she was already through the bathroom door. He can decide for himself if he wants to follow. She had no sooner turned on the water and stepped inside the bathtub than Zack came in, pulling off his shirt as he came. "You sure didn't think about it long," she teased, poking her head around the shower curtain. He rolled his eyes and stepped in after her, reaching past her and flipping the water up to the showerhead. Jondy jumped as the first cold shock hit her, but the water warmed quickly. She picked up the shampoo bottle, leaning comfortably against Zack as they stood crammed tightly together in the tiny space. Before she could squeeze any into her hand, however, he took the bottle from her.
"Here, let me do it." If she had been afraid that he was a rough hair washer, she was sadly mistaken. It was just like being in a barbershop, his fingers slid through her hair just hard enough to clean it, but light enough for her to feel like she could fall asleep standing up if he would keep going for hours. His voice surprised her when he murmured in her ear, "Feel good?"
"You have no idea," she groaned, tilting her head forward so he could work further down her neck. "Where did you learn to do this so well?"
"Would you believe I worked in the same barbershop as Brin when I was first trying to check up on her without her knowing?"
"Really? She didn't guess it was you?"
She felt him shift his weight uncomfortably. "Well, I was, uh, acting quite a bit different from usual so she wouldn't suspect."
Jondy turned to face him with a grin on her face. "You pretended to be gay, didn't you?"
Zack blushed and started trying to rinse her hair out. "Yeah, basically. I was pretty good at it, I worked with her for well over a week before I let her know who I was, and she practically fainted. If you had seen me then, you probably wouldn't have believed it was me either."
Jondy's eyes danced mischievously. "Did you happen to wear ridiculously tight pants and spike your hair?"
He refused to make eye contact with her, focusing instead on her hair. She burst out laughing, grabbing his arm to keep from slipping in the wet tub. She would pay good money for pictures of that.
Just as he finished rinsing out her hair, Jondy heard the clear ringing of his cell phone in the other room. They stared at each other, disappointment very clear in both their eyes. Zack stepped out and grabbed a towel, then headed into the living room. She poked her head around the curtain and listened intently as Zack answered the phone. She couldn't make out what he was saying, but she definitely heard him flip it shut loudly in frustration. She pulled her head back behind the curtain before he could see it as he walked back into the bathroom, but he didn't get back into the shower. Instead, he started to get dressed again. As she finished washing up, she asked, "Who was it? When are we leaving?"
She knew her anger was showing in her voice, but she couldn't help it. This was her last chance to be alone with Zack before they were separated for several months, and now it was getting cut short. He sighed as he pulled his shirt over his head. "It was Kiera. We'll have to get going quickly, Ben and Shayna are headed for Boulder, Colorado."
Jondy shut off the water and stepped out, toweling herself off furiously. "How does she know that?"
"I guess they were so insistent about running away that she pretended to help them and told them about a series of abandoned summer homes just outside of Boulder that she had hid in once. We'll have to get going, because even though Shayna might trust Kiera, Ben won't. He won't stay there long, just long enough for him to find a new place to stay."
He was already hurrying off to the bedrooms to throw their stray things back into their bags. By the time she was dressed, he was hauling things toward the car. She picked up the remaining bags and took off after him. When she had set her armload in the car, he asked, "Anything else we have to still get in the cabin?"
"Not as far as I know," she replied, already heading for the passenger side of the car. As Zack jumped in and started up the car, she looked longingly at the cabin. Why did they have to leave? Suddenly, she didn't care if Shayna and Ben ran off together. They'd be careful, they wouldn't want to get caught again. As far as she was concerned, it was good riddance. They were both more trouble than they were worth. After a moment, she felt ashamed of herself. They were her family, she couldn't just let them run off. What if they were too reckless and put the baby's life in danger? No, the right thing to do was to go after them.
The trip to Colorado went far too quickly for Jondy's liking. Wasn't a drive across the country supposed to take longer? Sure, Zack was speeding insanely, but it just didn't seem like they had enough time. Before she knew it, they were parking the car in a parking lot in Boulder and setting off on foot for the countryside. Even that journey, which in reality took a few hours, seemed to go by in a flash. They didn't speak once the entire time, but Jondy didn't know if he was thinking about their looming separation or if he was focused on the task at hand. He probably had both running through his mind, he had always been extraordinary at multitasking.
After searching through several of the abandoned homes, Zack ran his fingers back through his hair, obviously thinking something over as hard as he could. Finally, he muttered, "I think we should split up, we'll find them faster that way."
"How are we supposed to let the other one know when we've found them? I left my cell phone in the car."
He glanced around, trying to spot as many houses as he could from where they were standing. "Well, if my suspicions are right, we'll hear it when the other one has found them. I think Ben is going to put up a big fight about this. You'll have to be really careful, but I think we'll stand a better chance of finding them if we're not together. We're too easy to see right now. Ben could get them both out of here before we find out which one they were hiding in. Will you be all right if you're the one who has to deal with Ben?"
"After the last few months, and especially after this past week, I think I could deal with an army of Bens. Don't worry about me, I'll be fine." Zack stared at her for a second, then reached out and squeezed her hand tightly before running off to their left. Jondy turned to the right and started stealthily making her way through the trees to the nearest house. More hours passed by as she snuck from house to house, finding nothing but dreary emptiness every time. These houses were falling apart. She guessed they belonged to people who had lost everything in the Pulse, because she doubted anyone had been here for the past seven years.
It wasn't until she reached one of the last houses that was practically on top of a gently trickling creek that she saw something unusual. The underbrush ahead of her had been knocked aside, and when she moved closer to investigate, she saw the front half of a barely sunk-in footprint. The sole design of what had to be an extremely worn tennis shoe had just barely imprinted itself into a partially dried mud puddle. From what she could see, it was too large to be a woman's shoe, so it must have been Ben's. As she kneeled down to get a closer look, her stomach dropped. It wasn't the front half of the shoe that had made an imprint, it was the back, which meant that Ben had been heading away from the house when he made this. She glanced up at the house, quickly seeing through the broken window to the stairs inside. There were clear footsteps in the dust on the stairs.
"It sure didn't take Kiera long to call you," came a calm, low voice from behind her. She spun around, only to be met by Ben's fist, which collided with her left cheek and sent her straight to the ground. She jumped to her feet and ducked his next punch, then threw up her arm and blocked his leg before it hit her. After he realized he didn't have the upper hand anymore, he took a step back with his fists still up and his legs bent in a fighting stance. Jondy pulled herself into the same position, taking a step back as well to give herself more room.
"Come on, Ben, do you really want to fight me?"
He didn't move his head, but his eyes gave it away. "No, not really, but I'll do what I have to so that you don't take Shayna away from me. That's my baby too, you don't have the right to take him or her away from me."
Jondy honestly felt bad for him, he wanted so badly to be a part of his child's life, but that just wasn't possible. "I'm sorry, but it can't be helped. We're looking out for the baby's best interests, and you know as well as I do that two X5s are going to draw a lot more attention than one. You and Shayna won't be able to keep your heads down well enough to keep Manticore from finding you, especially if you're raising a baby." She wanted to talk about his extracurricular activities as well, but she didn't want to anger him further.
"Don't worry about us, I'll take care of everything," he replied firmly. Almost before she could react, he shot forward and whipped her around, locking an arm around her neck. She was ready for him this time though, she moved closer to a tree before he reached her and when he had her trapped against him, she ran right up the tree and flipped backward over him. As soon as her feet were on the ground, she backhanded him as he turned around and forced him into the same tree she had just run up. While he was recovering, she took off for the house, charging in and locking the door behind her as she went. It wouldn't delay him long, he could either kick down the door or climb in through the broken window. She looked around for a path that wouldn't be too visible, but nearly every avenue open to her had a hard floor covered with a thick layer of dust. Her only option was the living room, but it left her completely visible through the window. Making her decision quickly, she dropped to the floor and crawled under the window, heading straight for an old grandfather clock on the other side of the room. She doubted Zack would have heard her fighting with Ben after how far she'd gone in the opposite direction from him, but she'd make sure he heard this.
Once she was past the window, she jumped to her feet and headed for the clock. She bent her legs and wrapped her arms around it, lifting it a few inches off the floor. Shuffling sideways, she carried the clock over to the only unbroken window in the house, a gargantuan bay window that overlooked the very tiny incline down to the small creek. Gathering her strength, she hurled the clock through the window, jumping back and covering her ears at the resulting crash. If Zack hadn't heard that, she would eat the broken glass on the floor.
She heard a scream from upstairs, she must have surprised Shayna with the crash as well. Jondy whipped around to see Ben knocking down the door and striding in, staring around for the source of the racket. She dropped down behind the couch, knowing he would have caught the movement out of the corner of his eye. She reached out and picked up one of the larger shards of glass, fully prepared to use it if he pushed her that far. She could already hear his light footsteps heading in her direction. Her eyes flashed around the only portion of the room she could see from her point of view, and they landed on an old fashioned telephone that needed the dialer to be spun over the numbers, but it was at least twenty feet away. Would she be able to get to it before Ben stopped her?
As soon as she knew he was about to step around the couch, she sprung forward and sank the shard of glass into his thigh. He cried out and jumped back, not paying any attention to her as she scrambled for the phone. She didn't know if he was stronger than she was or not, but she didn't want to take the time to find out. Why drag it out? To her surprise, he lunged after her and tackled her around the waist when she was only a few feet from the table holding the phone. She hit the ground hard, yelping when her forehead bounced off the edge of the table. A fair amount of blood began to stream down the right side of her face. She noticed Ben hesitate, perhaps not sure he wanted to hurt her so much, but she didn't quite feel the same way now. She reached up and snatched the phone, then brought it down hard on the top of his head. He slumped against her, and she started to panic. What if she had killed him? After Eva, she wasn't sure she could deal with killing another X5. She sat up and tilted his head back, pressing her fingers against his throat. She heaved a deep sigh of relief at the strong pulse beneath her fingers.
"Oh my God, what did you do to Ben?" Shayna shrieked, running down the stairs as fast as she could go. Jondy clutched the edge of the table and pulled herself up, frowning when she pulled her hand back and realized there was some blood on it that she had left on the table. Her hand moved up to her head and she cringed as her fingers came into contact with the gash on the right side of her forehead. It was near enough to her temple that she knew she had come very close to severing her artery. Before she knew it, Shayna was on top of her, throwing punches without really aiming. "You bitch! You can fuck the C.O. but you can't let me be with the father of my baby? You stupid whore, why can't you let me be happy?"
The words stunned Jondy so much that at first she couldn't even react, she simply let Shayna continue on her tirade while she struck away with her fists. "Yeah, we all knew what was going to happen when you and Zack took off. I can't believe how damn selfish you are. I just want this one thing, and you can't let me have it! Before, when I wanted to be with Ben, Zack took me away, then he tried to make me leave Brandon, the only other person who really cared about me! But did anyone take you away from Zack? No, of course not, because he had the opportunity to have a piece of ass! You're kidding yourself if you believe your time with him was anything more than that, but I don't think you care either. You probably loved letting him take advantage of you, you fucking slut!"
Finally, Jondy had to respond. There were no words that could describe what she was feeling, but she managed to get her point across pretty well with the left hook she threw at her sister. Shayna was sent straight to the floor, but instead of coming back for Jondy again, she slid over to sit next to Ben and pulled him into her arms, saying whatever soothing things she could think off. Jondy backed away from them both, now dreading more than ever the fact that she would have to live with Shayna for several months. Hearing her sister call her such filthy names had been a hard blow, even though she knew Shayna was wrong. Zack wasn't just out for a "piece of ass." He loved her, and she didn't have a single doubt about it.
"What's going on in here?" Zack's voice demanded from the busted front door.
Jondy turned with relief and motioned towards the unconscious Ben in Shayna's arms. "Everything's under control, we just need to find a place to put him until we can get Shayna out of here."
Shayna crossed her arms and glared at Jondy fiercely. "Sure, the tramp managed to get things under control. Congratulations on picking a winner, Zack. She's good in bed and she can fight."
If anything Shayna said shocked Zack, he didn't show it. He merely stared her down and growled, "That's enough, Shayna. Get your things, we're leaving."
It wasn't easy to drag the feisty, pregnant X5 to the car against her will. She kept screaming out for Ben to wake up, but Jondy doubted he could get to them even if he did hear her cries. She and Zack had dragged him into the basement and barricaded him inside with as many things as they could find. There were no windows, so he would have to get out through the heavily blocked basement door. It would take him a few hours to make it out, and it could still be several hours before he even woke up. According to Zack, Jondy had been dangerously close to killing him with that telephone. If she had been even an inch closer to the back of his head, that blow would have been fatal.
Jondy ended up driving back to Wyoming; Zack had to sit with Shayna and hold her still. They were both lathered in sweat by the time they reached Osage, which evidently took Kiera by surprise as she came out of the house. "Where's Ben?"
"We left him in Colorado, so we're going to have to move fast so we're out of here by the time he wakes up and finds a ride back here," Jondy replied, helping Zack drag Shayna from the back seat as she screamed every obscenity in the book at them. Kiera rushed forward to help them, and between the three of them, they managed to force her into Kiera's bedroom, which was the only one without windows. Once they were done, Jondy flopped out on the floor in the living room. Zack chose the sofa, and Kiera plopped herself down in the rocking chair.
Suddenly, Kiera looked over at Zack meaningfully and turned to Jondy. "Hey, could you run to the bakery and get us something to eat? I don't care what you bring back, but I'm starving." Jondy looked from Kiera to Zack, but she couldn't understand why Kiera was trying to get rid of her.
"Sure, I guess, but it's kind of late in the day for doughnuts or muffins or anything like that. Are you sure that's what you want?"
Kiera nodded and handed her a handful of bills. "Yeah, that'll work." Jondy glanced at Zack again, who seemed as clueless as she was about what was going on. He just shrugged when she looked at him, so she headed out. She rushed to the bakery, jogging the entire way. She would have used the car, but it was such a short trip that it would have been a waste of gas. She was almost rude to Amanda when she bought a few boxes of muffins, but she apologized quickly before she rushed out the door again. She had to find out what Kiera was talking to Zack about. Why wouldn't she want her around for it? What could she possibly have to say that she couldn't say in front of Jondy?
By the time she reached the house, Kiera and Zack were no longer in the living room, but a tattered suitcase she didn't recognize was sitting in front of the couch. She could hear someone moving around upstairs, so she ran up and walked into Shayna's bedroom, where Kiera was throwing various things into a garbage bag. Shayna didn't have much, seeing as how they hadn't brought anything to Manticore with them. It took Kiera a minute to notice someone was watching her, but she didn't jump when she noticed Jondy standing there. "Did you get the grub?"
Jondy placed her hands firmly on her hips. "Yeah. So, what were you and Zack talking about?"
Kiera bit her lip, then sat down on the bed. "We were talking about you two and Shayna. Maybe you should talk to Zack about it, you'd probably rather hear it from him. He's down in his room packing."
She crossed her arms, hating that she always seemed to be the last to know anything. She turned and barely held back from stomping down the stairs to get rid of some frustration. This time she wasn't quiet, she walked straight into Zack's room with her arms crossed and asked, "What is it that you two were talking about that Kiera seems to think I need to hear from you?"
He turned from pushing an armload of clothes into his suitcase and, strangely enough, looked thrilled to see her. Suddenly, she wasn't sure that what Kiera had wanted to talk to him about was negative. "Sit down, I think you'll be happy about this." She hurried over to the bed and sat down, impatiently waiting for him to start explaining. He didn't seem to want to put it off either. "Kiera made an offer that I think you'll really like, so I'm not too worried about you saying no. I guess it occurred to her when we were dragging Shayna into the house. With all the stress that Shayna has been under lately, Kiera's worried it will start affecting the baby, and it's pretty obvious at the moment that you're no help for her in that department." Jondy opened her mouth to protest, but he held up a hand to stop her. "I know you two became really close at Manticore, but right now she associates you with me, and I'm the one keeping her from Ben, so she's not a fan of either of us right now. It's not good for the baby, and in addition to that, you might not know what to do if something goes wrong. That's why Kiera offered to be the one to stay with Shayna during the rest of her pregnancy and for a while after she has the baby."
Jondy's eyes widened in surprise. "You mean…"
"Yeah, you don't have to stay with her for the next several months. You can go back to being SIC like usual. As soon as we relocate Kiera and Shayna, anyway, which I think is a better idea than leaving them here. Ben will come back here for his things, so we'll need to be long gone. I think Kiera already threw what little stuff you had into a bag for you."
Jondy really couldn't believe her luck. But poor Kiera. "Are you sure it's a good idea to leave Kiera and Shayna alone for months at a time? Kiera told me along time ago that she doesn't like Shayna, how long do you think it would be before they tore each other apart?"
Zack smiled at her, tossing one of his fake IDs into the suitcase. "That's when it becomes our job to intervene and calm things down, then get the hell out of there before Shayna drives us insane."
She laughed and hugged him happily, then headed upstairs to thank Kiera. Now the next several months were looking much better.