Chapter eight: The truth is out there

Blaming Ben was a good way to ease the guilt that leaving her kinds behind caused. She should've stayed there and made sure everyone got out safely. Then again, if Max had really been there she was probably taking care of that issue right now just to underline her own greatness. If Angel was supposed to feel grateful, she wasn't. Disgust was the only feeling besides guilt that her brain let her process.

"You alright?" It was Ben pulling her back from her thoughts into a reality where she really didn't want to be. Not there; sitting next to Syl in a back of an army van... face to face with Ben while Krit was driving. They were headed towards to… actually she didn't know. So she only shrugged to herself. What did it matter anyway? They were heading somewhere but she really didn't know where exactly that somewhere was. And well, neither did she care.

Away. It was the only thing she knew for sure. Away from Manticore. She shook her head a little. Away from her present life once again. Ben saw it as being free, she saw it as being out of place.

"Angel..? You ok?"

What, huh? Oh. "Yeah, I'm alright. Always", Angel answered as usual staring at her shoes - for some reason she wasn't able to look into his eyes. Didn't want to. She was about to fall apart piece by piece and she didn't want that to happen in front of the other X5s. Get a grip. Actually, she just didn't want it to happen in front of Ben.

It was weird. Somehow she found herself loving the guy and hating him at the same time. It was an impossible situation to solve no matter what; she knew that it wouldn't work between them. She was a soldier and he on the other hand… well, wasn't. Not anymore. So they were two different kinds of people in two different kinds of worlds, or that was what she kept telling herself to keep the pain away. Ben wasn't part of the world she knew. He didn't even want to be and he made it more than clear.

"So you're 453, right?" Syl asked carefully when she noticed the tenseness between them. It was hard not to notice – almost like a gray layer had been placed between them and someone had to try and get rid of it.

"Yep", Angel answered finally lifting her head up but still avoiding Ben's eyes every way possible. "Wait a minute..." Syl narrowed her eyes as she opened her backpack trying to find whatever it was inside it.

"I think", she continued going through the insides of her bag, "- we have file about you… We found in this office back at Manticore just before the explosion."

At Manticore? They had been insane enough to go into the actual building and snoop around? They didn't lack in courage, that one she had to admit. "You have a file about me? With you? Here? How?"

"I just said – we found it. I took it just in case", Syl explained and pulled something out of her backpack. "Here. Ours weren't there, at least we didn't find them. And this is Max's", she said offering two brown folders to Angel to take. So as expected, Angel took her own but refused to take Max's file. She didn't even want to see it so the thought of touching it or reading it… No, she didn't want to know anything about her.

"You don't wanna take a peek? You sure?" Syl was surprised and as Angel saw it, she frowned. Well… Clearly Syl wasn't the kind of person to hide her feelings. Yeah, Angel thought, but she has been living in the real world her entire life so what else can I expect? She ain't no soldier, remember?

"No... I mean I'm sure", Angel said with no real explanation to share. Besides, she didn't have to explain herself to Syl, did she? She wasn't her friend or anything like that; being soldier she didn't have any and she wasn't too good with explanations.

Here goes nothing. Angel was already opening the file she was holding in her hand with shaky fingers when Ben all the sudden cleared his throat. "You sure it's a good idea?"

"What? Why wouldn't it be?" She asked wrinkling her forehead. Why wouldn't it be a good idea? She deserved to know what they had written about her, didn't she?

"I mean, are you ready to face those things?"

What?

"All the Manticore bullshit that's in there?" Ben tried to explain himself but somehow he sounded strange. What was he aiming at with this? It sounded almost as… "It just… I mean that you have to focus and that file is gonna mess up your head, I'm sure of it."

What was up with him now? Angel's curiosity only grew if possible. It was almost as if he didn't want her to open the file and see what it contained. Why? No, it can't be that, Angel tried to say to herself. He couldn't possibly know what the file had between its covers… Could he?

"How hard can this be, 493?" She asked deficiently wanting him know that she was still refusing to call him Ben.

But he didn't have time to think about that. How hard can that be? Yeah, he knew the answer alright: Really hard. That folder was about to ruin everything. Why now? Just when he had thought he didn't have to be afraid of the truth coming out anymore she suddenly was about to find out everything. Life's fucked up way. It would kill her even though she wouldn't admit it and after that she would kill him. Slowly. Probably would bring him back to life few times just to see him die again. Oh my God... if you really exist, help me. This would be the perfect moment to prove your being here, he begged but didn't seem to get an answer. How typical. So instead of grabbing the folder and throwing it out of the window like he wanted to do, he just watched how Angel opened the file and slowly took a deep breath.

The first thing she saw was pile of pictures. Suddenly her whole life flashed in front of her eyes; all summoned up by simple pictures. Picture after picture she saw herself... in the infirmary, being tested, training, fighting, sleeping, eating, even killing, and also walking to the shop, talking to Ben, both of them playing with Michael in their living-room... When she saw herself, looking so happy in that picture… everything started slowly come back to her. Suddenly she was able to remember just when exactly Val had taken that picture, what she had been thinking at that moment, how unaware of the future she had been... They all looked so happy, but they hadn't known then what was gonna happen. They only had that moment and now it was gone like every other good thing in her life.

A lonely tear escaped the invisible barrier in the corner of her eye and ran down her cheek… she wiped it off angrily. There was no time for crying! Crying was for losers. Failures.

"What is it?" Syl moved closer to her and wrapped her arm over Angel's shoulder. A gesture that would've normally made her jerk away, but now it only brought comfort. "Nothing... Some stupid pictures... That's all."

"Listen", Syl started, "maybe Ben was right... maybe you shouldn't read it for now at least. You have to keep your head clear so we are gonna make it out alive."

But Angel didn't listen anymore. She was somewhere deep inside of her thoughts; dwelling in the lost times. Thinking about the past. About Michael. Ben had been right. She did want that life back but she knew it wasn't ever going to happen. No, don't let this get a hold of you, soldier, she demanded herself forcing her fingers to move on; she started to read the other papers inside the file to get her mind off Michael.

She knew all of those details already. She knew her barcode, her weight, her height, the color of her eyes... she knew her designation, her unit and where she had been trained, when and by whom. But then a pile of handwritten reports got her attention. This was with no doubt something she didn't know.

Ben saw the confusion shining in her eyes. Oh boy. This was not good.

She read the first one of them holding her breath at the same time. The reports had been written by X5-493 – written by Ben. For a moment she just stared at the piece of paper in front of her eyes. Oh my God! This isn't true. He couldn't have done that. He couldn't have. Not to her.

Angel read the report again. No matter how she wanted to deny it; it was there, black on white. X5-493 explained how he understood how important his assignment was for Manticore's future and there was a list of all kind of little things that she had done and said and-

Angel gasped before she looked at Ben.

"You knew!" she hissed not being able to hold back the tears. She gave a murderous look to Ben. She was sad and desperate but at the same time she was angrier than ever. More than angry – furious.

"You son of a bitch, you knew! It was them! You knew all the time and you didn't tell me!" Angel screamed.

Ben didn't say a word. He knew what she was talking about; it wasn't hard to guess. He had no excuse good enough that she would have actually bought, so why even bother to try? Of course, she could've come up with some kind of twisted little lie but Angel deserved something better.

"What's the problem there? I'm trying to drive here in case you didn't see, so shut up!" Krit yelled from the front seat where he was sitting with Zack. The noise was starting to eat up his concentration.

"You shut up!" Angel yelled back to him but didn't take her eyes off Ben... not even for a second. She wanted an explanation and she wanted it right away! No, actually she wanted to kick his ass but she thought it could wait till after she had gotten that explanation.

"Hey, take it easy there", Zack tried too but she didn't listen. All of her attention was pointed at Ben.

"There's nothing I can say to you, Angel. Nothing that makes you feel better. I can't say anything to make it look better either. There's absolutely nothing I can do to make you not want to kill me. I did what I had to do and that's it."

"You knew…" It sounded somewhat like a suffocated sob.

"Yeah I knew - of course I knew. It was my assignment... my job, honey. You have been there too, you said it yourself. There was no way out. Not for you and sure as hell not for me! We were testing you. Goddamn, you know that already. They wanted to see if you were capable of dealing with humanly feelings and still think like a soldier." All what he was saying, Angel knew already. She had forced it out on him during that first night together back at Manticore. And he had told her because she had needed to know. Only, he hadn't told her everything…

"You let them do that."

He couldn't have felt guiltier. "Like I had a choice and you know what, Angel? You failed the test and they killed him." Maybe throwing the blame on her shoulders wasn't that smart, but it was the only thing he figured would keep her from attacking him. And in the end, it wasn't a lie. She hadn't meant it to happen, but it had.

"I failed?" The pain in her eyes made it hard for him to think straight.

"Yes, you failed! His genes were imperfect so they didn't need him but they wanted you back to the headquarters."

"Why?" The question came to his ears as a whisper.

"You serious?" No one but he could hear his voice tremble a bit, "They wanted to try and fix you. All you needed was some serious training and that's what you got which I see has done the trick. I can only tell you that I couldn't do anything but to follow the orders. I had no choice, damnit!"

"What the hell are you talking about?" Syl, who had been listening to the fight in silence cut into the conversation demanding to know what the fuss was about and Angel answered before he had time to say anything, "That bastard killed our baby that's what he is saying!"

"Ben...?"

"No, of course I didn't kill him", Ben defended himself giving Syl an angry glare. "I loved my son! But yes, she's right, I did know that they were gonna do it. What the hell was I supposed to do?" He continued cynically, "- Tell you the truth, ask you to marry me and escape with you to Hawaii?"

"That would have been a start!" Angel snarled barely controlling herself. All this time she had thought he was innocent…

"Can't you understand? They'd have had killed us all after that? They'd have hunted us down and killed us. I know now that going back to Manticore was the wrong decision to make, but come on Angel, I couldn't have known it then!"

Yeah, but it wasn't good enough. Hate, anger, sadness, disappointment, lost love... all of those feelings bubbling underneath the surface... they were written all over her face and realizing she'd probably hate him for the rest of her life hurt Ben more than he could take. He tried to act cool, like a soldier for once in his life but it was too damn difficult. Those big brown eyes… oh God… he just wanted to tell how sorry he was but his pride stood in the way.

"Stop the car!" Angel yelled to Krit all the sudden, but he didn't respond; either he didn't hear or then he didn't just care which Angel thought to be more likely. But she couldn't let it be - she wanted to get the hell away from the car… from Ben. She didn't want to see him ever again and she definitely didn't want be so close to him. Ben had lied to her… he had let those monsters kill her – their baby, and after that he had done nothing but lied to her - again!

Feelings again… If she hadn't had been so messed up with feelings back then maybe she would've had realized everything before it all happened. Feelings; she hated them! She even hated the fact she was capable of hating… to feel. She didn't want to feel anything anymore. She wanted to be strong.

A soldier.

"Stop the Goddamn car!" she yelled again with louder tone when Krit didn't respoond. "Stop the car!" And when he still didn't do as he was told, she moved towards him and reached out through the small window to his shoulder. Krit tried to push her away with his elbow.

"We ain't stopping here 'cuz you two got a little family problem!"

But Angel didn't care about his words. She had made up her mind – she would get out of there no matter what and that selfish prick wasn't going to stop her.

"What the fuck are you doing?" Krit groaned when Angel crawled through the small window, pushed him from the seat against the window on their side and hit the brakes as hard as she could. Unfortunately, Krit unintentionally turned the wheel at the same time and...

It happened so fast that she really didn't have the time to think about what she had done... everything suddenly started to spin around.


Was she floating?

"Oh my god, is she dead?"

Was he talking to her?

"Shut up!"

Was that Syl?

"What? I wanna know?"

Where were they?

"No I dun think she is dead! Go find him!"

Was they talking bout her?

"Where is he?"

Why did she feel so cold?

"Would I have asked if I knew?"

What was going on?

"Dam Syl… we gotta get her outta there like NOW."

Why did her arm hurt?

"I'm trying! I'll take care of it, go find Ben! Now!"

Ben?

"I'll go!"


A/N: On we go. Hope you're still enjoying the fic so far.