Disclaimer: I do not own any character of Dark Angel…and with it being all canceled I might as well considering I have free reign. evil grin Alec is a god. shakes self back to stupid disclaimer. The only things I own are the characterizations and the plot and the randomness that is my mind. The song belongs to the movie Anastasia, which I'm pretty sure, belongs to Disney. Kudos for that by the way.
AN: Merry Christmas! People emailed me…all of you are sweethearts and I am beyond touched. I know I'm a bad author, sadly I'll probably go on being a bad author but bear with me. This is not an easy fic to write and none of the others are either. But I am alive and writing and reviewing does give me incentive to write more. I know that sounds like crap with the almost year that has just passed me by like no bodies business, but believe me if people hadn't emailed me or reviewed begging for more story…I would not be here with you know.
Do review…I cry on cue.
Chapter 2: Sing me a memory
~*~
In every mind
there is a sweet symphony of untold stories.
Poetry, and art, and music
are the skillful rendering
of these dreams into reality.
~*~
Mary was staring at her, Jondy was trying very hard not to notice. To be honest on most occasions she would have some flippant remark or a joke to throw out, but at the moment there weren't any coming to her. She shifted uneasily under the stare and she took a sip out of the lemonade that had been handed to her a good forty-five minutes ago before the silence had commenced. How does one talk to their long lost sibling that doesn't even remember being your long lost sibling? For that matter how does one broach the subject with someone who wasn't part of that past looking on, better yet looking at you like you are the antichrist bringing about the end of the world?
Simple you ask her to leave the room…but its her room, her house, and her lemonade that you're drinking.
Zane was taping out a rhythm on his knee, a habit she was sure he had picked up from her along the way. Or were they, as transgenics, prone to excessive movement? She snuck a look at Zack who was sitting perfectly still, back straight and head bent slightly so he could look at his hands and thought he either disproved the theory or was just plain strange.
Or was it Adam? That was something she didn't think she would ever get used to. Zack had been Adam long enough that there very possibly was a whole complete personality overtop the very extreme personality of Zack. He'd had the chance that he'd never had before, that none of the other transgenic siblings had had. He's had the chance to experience life as a normal, without the memories of his time as a killer, or a science experiment, or a run away. A fresh slate that was pristine, with only a little bit of that annoying chalky residue that was always left after they'd been cleaned off. Who was this man sitting next to her? Would she like the changes or would that forever drive a wedge between them? Would she always feel that nagging bit of jealousy over his chance at normalcy, and if she was jealous would he forgive her for taking it away?
Someone had been talking…she blinked distractedly and looked from face to face trying to figure out who it had been that had uttered the words, "where are ya'll from?"
Mary. It had had to have been Mary. Right? Right. Jondy smiled flashing white teeth hoping they were sparkling beautifully. "We're all from Gillette, Wyoming originally, but we've all lived here and there." Mary flinched a little but mostly hid her discomfort bravely.
"We?" Adam asked quietly, his eyes finally lifting to take in her face.
Pretty, isn't it? She thought unhappily but nodded to Zane and herself. "We…"
"Well, you too," Zane added with an endearing little bob of his head. Was he allowed to be endearing? Wasn't that Sasha's department? Not that he was like a dog…most of the time. Right, back on task.
Adam's face had gone hard, "how do you know that exactly?"
"We're psychic," Jondy said with a wave of her fingers and an attempt to look cosmic. Knowing she failed she gave him a lopsided smile and shrugged, "guess."
"Why don't we not talk about this right this minute," Mary said slowly from her position at the counter, ready to refill any glasses the second any of them dropped an inch or two. "I think we should wait, until Buddy gets home, before we get into how you know our boy."
Jondy didn't say anything and she looked at Zane and batted her eyelashes. She deserved a cookie for her self-restraint. "Sure, ma'am."
"I'd like to know now." Looking at Zack…Adam. Looking at Adam she saw the way his mood had shifted. He was suddenly impatient, suddenly very angry that someone was trying to tell him that he had to wait to learn about himself. She couldn't blame him, she was a bit impatient herself…not that that was anything new in the least.
"Now isn't the time, Adam," Mary said, putting down the pitcher to reach out for his shoulder. He moved, like a cat that didn't want to be petted, and shifted so she never connected and stood up. "He'll be home soon," she added placatingly.
"It doesn't matter if he's here, though. I'm pretty much the big essential," he ground out before turning on the ball of his foot and left the house with a slamming of the screen door.
They all three stared after him for a minute, no one too sure on what needed to be said. Jondy sucked in her cheeks and did a quick shifting of her eyes before pulling a face at Zane. "That went extremely well," she told him innocently.
"It's a lot for him to digest," Mary said quietly. "He doesn't usually act like that…he's the most polite young man I've ever met." She was wringing her hands and Jondy was mesmerized by the action. Left hand. Right hand. Left. Right. Left. Then she stopped, probably having seen the eyes that were on her. "I don't know if you're telling him the truth, but know this…" she looked both of them in the eye for a very long time her own eyes fierce. "If you hurt him…I'll never forgive you."
Zane was the one who answered her silent plea, "Ma'am, we wouldn't forgive ourselves if we hurt him."
She smiled then, sunshine through rain clouds on a summer's day. "Well, in that case, you're welcome to stay here, of course. You missed dinner tonight, but you're welcome to have some food if you're hungry. You'll just have to make it yourself. And Buddy, my husband, should be back in an hour or so." With another smile she reached for a washrag to clean off the already spotless counter, while Jondy and Zane just stared at each other.
~*~
She found Zack later, pretty much where she thought she would. The barn seemed an obvious hiding place even to someone who'd never really been on a farm before. She smelt him when she walked inside and she instantly looked up into the loft. He was looking down at her, and she saw the momentary surprise that flashed through his eyes at seeing her. She smiled sweetly, "hey there, handsome."
"How'd you find me?" he asked gently, leaning back as he watched her climb the ladder leading to where he sat.
"Women's intuition."
He wouldn't meet her eyes for a moment, instead he looked out the small window that looked out over pastures, green grass turned silvery in the first dark of a new night. She waited, not saying anything, taking the time to study his face. It was almost exactly like she remembered it, the skin pale and perfect. The creases around his mouth, becoming more prominent as he pursed his lips unconsciously, a habit she could remember his doing occasionally when he was thinking about something unpleasant. The fall of gold hair just brushing the skin above dark eyebrows, shinning with each microscopic movement of his head. She couldn't even see where the skin covered the metal placed over his eye…which one had Max told her it was? Had she been listening to that part? Had Max even told her anything more then there was a cybernetic eye? Her eyes flitted down to his arm resting in his lap. Both seemed whole, no machine to support damaged nerves and muscles, at least that had healed without any bad effects…she hoped.
"Where's the guy?" he asked suddenly, his voice almost making her jump.
"'The guy?'" she repeated blithely, tilting her head to the side and raising one eyebrow.
"You know who I'm talking about…" he thought for a moment before saying the name that had for a brief second escaped him. "Zane."
Was it her imagination or had his voice warmed briefly on the name? "He's back at the house trying to make nice with the locals."
"'Locals'?" It was his term to mimic apparently.
"Mary and Buddy."
"They're good people," he said through a clenched jaw.
"I have no doubt, and I never said they weren't…"
"So why have they never told me anything about my past, so I would know if you two were telling the truth or not?" He looked at her then, eyes as blue as spring skies looking lost. She's seen that face before and she thought for a second she was going to start blubbering like a baby.
"They don't really know much about your past." Jondy sighed and let out a bitter laugh. "There's very few people in the world that know about your past, and even less that know a lot about it."
"And you're one of the few that know about it?" He asked skeptically.
"I'm one of the even less that know a lot about it." A wiggling of her eyebrows and a grin were sent in his direction.
"Why?" Such a simple question, she thought. How come it was the simple questions that always seemed to open up such big problems?
"Because I was a part of most of it."
"Tell me something about myself that no one else knows," it was almost belligerent how he said it. If she closed her eyes she could just imagine it was a thirteen-year-old Zack trying to tell some old guy that he didn't need his parents to buy groceries. Jondy let her eyes drift closed and imagined it for a second before bending her mind to remember something that would have meaning, or be funny, or anything. "Well?"
"You have a birth mark the shape of the United Kingdoms on your backside," she couldn't help the gloat. She tried to stop it, but her gloating mechanism was faulty, it started working at the worst times.
His mouth open and closed before he snapped it shut, audibly. "That's not what I meant…"
"I know…but it's such a cute birthmark, and it's been ages since I've seen it."
His eyes looked like they were going to fall out from lack of support they opened so wide. "You've seen it!?"
"Of course…how did you think I knew about it?" She had to admit, there was some appeal to Adam, Zack had never looked like that. How did one surprise Zack exactly? And if one managed to actually achieve the almost impossibly he never got that look of a high schooler being told some juicy piece of forbidden gossip.
"I…well…that's just…not right." Jondy shrugged and brushed some hair from her face. "Tell me something else, not related to my physical attributes."
She let out a 'hmph' before trying again, her eyes went unfocused and it was her turn to look out onto the pastures. "You're faster then everyone else," her voice was a haunting whisper. "You're stronger, and smarter. You can see things that no one else can and hear far away sounds. And you have this restless feeling at the pit of your stomach every time you look out at the horizon, and you know there's something you're missing that no one else does."
He stared at her, something moving beneath the water of his eyes, some unfathomable thing stirring in the depths as he took her in. The slant of her nose, the unbelievable electric blue of her eyes, the gold and blue of her hair, the way muscles moved under the sugar cookie skin, nothing escaped his eyes for a moment before he breathed the question, "what are you to me?"
"Family," she breathed back, the word soft and shivery so close to being lost in the great big night that surrounded them.
They stared together out their window and it was without thinking that Jondy started to sing. A reaction that was always below the surface, but it was a soft voice that let the notes slide upon the air. "Dancing bears, painted wings things I almost remember. And a song someone sings once upon a December." She hummed, not really aware of what she was doing but he watched her, unable to take his eyes off of her anymore then she could drown out the haunting melody. "Someone holds me safe and warm, horses prance through a silver storm, figures dancing gracefully across my memory."
He had a vision, a memory, a dream of a time before…before living. The feel of his head laying in a soft lap, an experience that even then had been novel and unusual. Fingers combed nimbly through his hair comfortingly as a voice sang a lullaby, coaxing him to sleep. "Far away, long ago, glowing dim as an ember. Things my heart used to know. Things it yearns to remember." It had been this voice, but was it real or a hallucination brought on my sheer need? "And a song someone sings once upon a December."