A/N: My first fic by myself… Be nice please.

A's cousin's /N: And this is Random Rose, her faithful beta.

Disclaimer: Dark Angel does not belong to me, if it did it would have a season 3. I do not own any of the characters, except Li.

Chapter 1: Big Brothers And Social Workers

"Lost is such a cheap word," Li flashed a sweetly patronizing smile at the social service worker, "I prefer, 'one who does not know where one is at the moment'."

"Come with me," The social service worker spoke in a placating tone, "We'll place you with a nice family with a big home and lots of food, new clothes to wear…"

"I wasn't born yesterday woman. Have you never heard of a thing called the Pulse?" Li gently eased her fingers forward. "Even if you do place me in a nice family, they'll either be abusive or something else."

The social worker knew the scrawny eight year old was right and she was obviously stalling for time. That's when she realized, while she had been busy talking, the kid had been pick-pocketing her.

"Hey!" The social worker gasped in indignation.

"Aw, come on lady. You're already gonna get me a family who's gonna give me food and new clothes, so you might as well just sponsor my next meal." Li's eyes darted around the narrow alley she'd been spending the last three days in and she bit her bottom lip, avoiding the glare of the social worker. "So, much as I'd like to stay and chat, I gotta jet."

As the social worker reached out to grab her, Li dodged tantalizingly out of reach. Sticking her tongue out, Li ran out of the alley and onto the street mingling with the crowd and loosing the social worker.

A hover drone flew by overhead and Li instinctively tugged the baseball cap covering her dark brown hair lower, covering her features.

She rolled her green eyes when a passing group of men wolf whistled at her; suddenly wishing that Manticore hadn't made her so beautiful. She was perfect in every way, with an Asian, Italian background and shoulder length dark brown hair which was just growing out of the Manticore buzz cut hairstyle. Emerald green eyes that made her look like a cat, high cheek bones and a heart shaped face completed the look.

Ironic, isn't it? Manticore wanted their precious soldiers to blend in for missions and yet, they make them so perfect. Li thought with a sneer as she ran. But then Manticore wouldn't have expected their soldiers to escape, figures all that training came back to bite them in the ass.

Li was interrupted from her musings when she came into contact with something solid. Apparently, she had just bumped into a man, a big beefy man with a short temper.

"Hey, watch where you're going kid!" he scowled.

"Sorry." Skirting around him she continued on her way to the harbor, where her contact had her latest supply of Tryptophan. She'd been limiting her intake of pills to a few since her stockpile was slowly diminishing.

Li tugged absent mindedly at the scratchy cloth of her hooded sweatshirt. She longed for a shower right now; even a cold shower would be nice. A change of clothes would be heaven. She hadn't changed for a week; her stomach was growling for food and she just felt downright uncomfortable.

Li's supplier wasn't there when she got there. Pier 16 was a really disgusting place; with rats crawling all over the place, it was mainly for gangbanging since no sane person would come here for any reason, which was the reason why she had chosen this location.

Her supplier arrived; Li had started to get nervous staying in one spot for so long.

"You're late." Li found it necessary to state the obvious. "Does this mean I get a discount for lousy customer service?"

"Where's my money?"

"Jeeze, is that all you think about or are women and booze included in that list?" She handed over his cash; a stack of bills rolled up and held together with a rubber band. Even as her supplier took the money, Li kept her hand out expectantly. "Where's my Trypto?"

"I'm not gonna supply you with it anymore."

"WHAT?" Li scowled. That expression seemed to be constant on her face, most probably because it was one of her best expressions. "Then, where the hell am I going to get it?'

"Not my problem. The Gang is gunning for me and this money you're handing me is going to get me started on my way out of town." He turned to leave. "See ya."

"Damn you!" Li swore at his retreating back. She could already start to feel the slight tremors going up her left arm. Hastily pulling open an almost empty bottle from her pocket, she popped a fistful into her mouth. She staggered forward away from the waterfront and further into the city. Might as well sit down and get comfortable. She thought as she leaned against the wall of a building.

The tremors started getting stronger. Her fingernails cut half moons into her palms when she clenched her fist tightly. As Li sat there convulsing, she heard passing pedestrians mutter about her and what America had come to. She silently accepted the snide remarks about her being the girl on a drug trip.

Li bit back a cry when her head slammed into the wall again for the tenth time and counting. Reaching for the pills again she popped another handful into her mouth when her shaking hands spilled the contents of it on the floor and she struggled to pick them up.

Li's reaction was instantaneous when a hand touched her shoulder. She struggled in her attacker's grip despite her increasingly stronger seizures.

She got a shock when a voice sounded from just behind her ear. "Stop Li, it's me, Zack."

Li stopped struggling instantly and twisted around to see him. "Zack? Big brother, you're here! You got out!"

"In the flesh," He grinned at her. "Come on, we can't stay here. Can you walk?"

"Oh, don't mind me; I'll just stagger along after you."

"I see. Still as sarcastic as ever, even with the seizures."

"Not even a seizure could daunt my sarcasm," Li bit out through the convulsing of her body. Then Zack picked her up, annoying and damaging her ego.

"Put me down!"

"I don't think so."

"Well think again." She started to struggle; that coupled along with her seizures was more than Zack could handle.

"Sorry about this." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a needle, jabbing it into her arm.

The last thing Li remembered before the drug took effect was Zack's face looking down pityingly at her.

A/N: PLEASE R&R.