Title: Eleven Easy Steps to A Normal Life

Author: Alexandra Bruderlin

Rating: M15+

Disclaimer: All characters you recognise are owned by James Cameron. I own Rain and Evie though, and I highly doubt anyone wants either of them. I make no profit from my fan work

Notes #1: Since this chapter took a lot longer than it should have, it's a longer chapter, huffah. I hope you like it, as it is the second of two versions I wrote, and I personally think the better one. And since I've finally finished high school, I plan to spend my summer writing Lost and Dark Angel fic (my Lost fic is posted under a different account; email me if you would like the URL).

Notes #2: Okay, I may be the world's slowest updater, but I work really hard to get every single chapter exactly right before I post it. I don't work with a beta reader because I won't let anyone look at my work before it is ready for presentation. I work really hard on all my writing, and I absolutely love doing it, but it doesn't seem like many people care very much. I'm only getting one or two reviews for each chapter - and I appreciate those reviews more than I can say - but when 65 people click on a chapter, and I get 2 reviews, it depresses me.

May 2006 will be the fourth anniversary of Dark Angel's cancellation - I'm not going anywhere. But I - and all of the other DA writers, I'm sure - would adore for the readers to show more support of their writing. Even if your review is just "Read it", it makes us feel good.

So, please review. I have a whole summer of writing ahead of me, and it's nice to start off on a good note.

Having acquired a medical degree probably made me even more aware of the corruption American faced. I've seen nurses only hand out medication to patients who pay them on the quiet. I've seen people bribe technicians to change blood test results. I've seen people die because they couldn't afford to bribe a doctor for the right treatment. Finding out the medication you prescribed was sold on the quiet and a young mother died for want of it does make you pessimistic.

I also know that for cuts and bruises, you do not need to be admitted to hospital. I'm smart like that.

But the paramedic who brought me in insisted that I needed a blood transfusion, which required that I be admitted, and that I needed to hand over my hard earned cash. What I was thinking was not polite at all. I could have stitched up my arm whilst walking home; it stung like a bitch, but I'm an X5, I'm not about to whine about a petty wound like that.

So, I lay back on the stretcher and examined my arm, which was still making a gallant effort to bleed, even through the stitches. I know my jeans and top had a fair bit of blood on them already. Damnit.

It's lucky the sector cops were feeling kind, and let the ambulance through. It's even luckier that the driver through open the ambulance doors at the time he did – just as the asshole paramedic ran his hand down my leg.

If he had waited one second to jump from the ambulance, he wouldn't be procreating in this universe. He jumped down, and I glared back, wiping my bloody arm on my shirt again and jumping out without any assistance. A nurse started to guide me into the E.R. as the paramedic gave me a smug smirk.

"That asshole sexually harassed me," I said loudly, eyeing a security guard a few metres away.

"I don't think you want to cause a fuss, dear," the nurse smiled at me, her eyes hard and emotionless. "You don't want to draw attention to yourself now, do you?" Her insipid smile didn't flicker as she grabbed my arm and examined the cut. I frowned at her as she did so. I was used to thinly veiled threats – I mean, I live with Zack. But this woman threw me; she was a nurse. Zack could withhold my credit cards; what the hell could she do to me? Take away the band-aids?

"We better get you admitted, dear," the woman nodded and guided me down the hall, past an E.R waiting room full of women in labour, children with burns and teenagers with paper clips wedged in their eye socks. Very odd – especially since I didn't even have my wallet on me.

"Now," the nurse steered me into a proper room, rather than a cubicle, and shut the door behind her. "Let's get you set up. I think a blood transfusion is in order, for that nasty cut. Better get yourself into a gown."

Okay, so some woman who threatened me and insisted I be tucked into a hospital bed before I was even admitted had to be smoking something strong if she thought I was going to strip for her and put on a glorified bed sheet.

"I'd rather stay in my clothes," I said, tossing my keys and lip gloss onto the shelf and tugging off my jacket. "Really, I've had a blood transfusion before and… I just really like these jeans."

"I'm sure you do," the nurse held out the hospital gown – nylon, white and blue, with press stud buttons down the front. "But it's hospital procedure. I'll go and get you a telephone and some forms to fill in, and then we can get the doctor down here."

She stayed until I handed over my clothes – I kept my underwear on on principle. That, and it was really nice underwear, with little lace daisies. She tucked me into the damn bed – yes, literally tucked me in – and hurried out. And as the door shut, I heard the unmistakable 'click' of the door being locked.

Fantastic, I was locking in a hospital room sans my clothes, with Russians looking to assassinate my boyfriend and a nurse who just looked evil – and not just because she needed a serious lip wax. And the bed felt like it had been made with newspaper. Particularly crisp newspaper. And, of course, there were no telephones – there was a steel jug of water on the nightstand, and inside it, I only found a glass bottle of peroxide and a glass thermometer. Since I was minus virtually all my possessions, I jammed the peroxide and the thermometer under my pillow.

They may have been crappy weapons, but at least I was armed.

I decided just to lie back and let everything happen – I needed to understand the situation before I dove in, all guns blazing.

If I had a gun. I'm sure I could make the peroxide into a very convincing bomb, if this hadn't been a hospital. It takes so long to get the medical credentials, now that I was legally a doctor; I didn't feel good going around and blowing people up. Especially sick people.

So, no bombs.

The nurse came back then, with a completely fake smile on her face, a male doctor trailing after her.

"Okay, Miss," the nurse smiled as she placed a tray on my knees – a bag of blood, some tubing, a needle and a little bottle of something clear, the labelled faded and peeling off. "We're just going to set up your transfusion, and you should be ready to go home in an hour or so."

The doctor grabbed my arm and started inspecting my veins.

"What's the clear stuff for?" I asked innocently. Please, I'm not that stupid.

"Just something to help you relax," the doctor said softly, sliding the needle into my wrist. As the nurse unscrewed it, the labelled came away, and I managed to read the script-like handwriting - "100 Liquid Potassium Chloride."

My reflexes kicked in and with a nudge of my knees, the tray tumbled to the floor and the blood back split open, splattering both the nurse and the doctor with blood. They swore at the same time.

"Oh!" I sat up, looking at the congealing blood on the dirty linoleum floor. "I'm sorry!"

"I'll get a mop," the nurse spat, putting down the bottle of Potassium Chloride on my night stand, and looked at the doctor. "You get more blood."

They both left the room, locking the door behind them. God, you could so tell she'd only ever worked with geriatrics before. No self-respecting nurse for children or me would have left me alone with a floor covered in blood and the happy bottle of euthanasia.

I was getting seriously bored with this.

I grabbed the glass bottle, and tipped the Potassium Chloride behind the nightstand, filling the empty bottle with water. It definitely didn't look much like the Potassium Chloride but whatever.

So, the door swung open. And I wasn't exactly prepared for what happened next.

An albino guy, dressed head to foot in military garb, burst in and began wildly firing his machine gun at me. Really classy. I rolled out of bed, landing in the congealing blood, the peroxide bottle and thermometer in my hands. I wriggled under the bed, and examined it quickly – it was metal, solid base – basically, an effective yet crude shield until this ass ran out of bullets or subtle ideas. I grabbed hold of the bed legs and pulled it forward, so that the bed flipped upright and protected me from the barrage of bullets.

Quick thinking has saved my life more times than I can count. And Krit called me a 'dumb ass' when I saw him last. Fool.

I flattened myself against the wall and balanced the peroxide in one hand. As easy as it would be to blow up the entire room with the peroxide and the wires from the broken bed lamp. But third degree burns had never been a good look for me (2005, Zane and a power box. I still have a scar along my hair line from the skin grafts).

I held my breath, listening as the soldier moved forward. As he leant around the upturned bed, his gun aimed at my face, I grabbed it and slammed it backwards in the soldier's face, effectively breaking his nose and hopefully cracking his skull. He crumpled backwards like a doll and I straightened up, aiming the gun at him in case he was faking it. The blood cascading down his face kinda suggested he was out for the count. I stood over him, plucking his hand gun from its holster and reached to take his jacket.

The door swung open to reveal another soldier – the same Slavic looks, and the same logo on the sleeve of his uniform. He looked down at his buddy on the hospital lino and up at me, the gun in my hand, and reached for his own firearm. I was on my feet, the unconscious-soldier's jacket half on and half dragging on the ground behind me, aiming the gun at the other Russian idiot.

This Russian idiot remembered to slam the door when he came in, which meant I couldn't just flee. Opening a door would eat up precious seconds, and give the soldier enough time to shoot me in the back. Or the skull. I'd have to beat him senseless first.

I don't think he expected me to dodge bullets, really. He swore in Russian and fired at me again; the drip bag hanging from its little metal stand exploded all over me (it was just a saline solution; nothing that would burn the skin from my body), making me look like a drowned rat. I shed the now-wet jacket, and hoped to go the saline hadn't made my hospital gown completely see through.

It didn't take him long to run out of ammo, though. He was firing wildly, with little regard for actually aiming or the fact I could dodge bullets. The last bullet hit the florescent light buzzing above us, the argon from the inside of it coating everything in the room. And then there was a sad clicking noise from the gun, and the look of horror across his face would have been comical if he hadn't been trying to kill me.

It took me seconds to leap across the room, the gun held in my hands. I was going to shoot him in the head, but at the last second I faltered and he took that moment to slam his own gun into my face; it caught me on the left side of my face – I could taste the blood in my mouth as he pulled the gun back for another go. But my reflexes kicked in and I kick him in the groin good and hard. He made a strangled squeaking name and grabbed for me, but I slapped by fist into his nose, the nasal cartilage crumbling under my hand, and blood pouring down his now-pale face.

And with a knee into his stomach, he fell to the grimy hospital lino, with a pretty sad-sounding moan. I stripped him of his gun, pulling out the magazine. I looked around for the damp jacket and shrugged it back on. I had no idea where my things had ended up, but this would have to do. I put the magazines of both guns into the jacket pocket, before finding their radios and pocketing them too.

It was quiet in the hallway, and there were no nurses around – just a row of closed doors, and a metal cart piled with things – books, blankets, flowers, packets of sugar…

A black nylon blanket was knotted around my waist as a make shift sarong, but there were no shoes on the cart. I'd have to get across town, to Logan's apartment barefoot and hope to go that no one caught me and that I didn't catch anything nasty. I may be transgenic, but this is Seattle; who knows what I'm going to die of just from breathing the air.

I left the radios in the cart, wrapped in the most enormous pair of flesh-pink boxer shorts I have ever seen, after I ripped the wires out. And then I sprinted for the fire exit. I had seriously damaged those soldiers, but that didn't mean they didn't have back up.

The fire exit lead out the back of the hospital, to a construction area. Back before the Pulse, they were going to build a new hospital, but then America's economy collapsed, and the old hospital was hastily patched up. It was just gravel and dirt, with a wire fence surrounding it, and three concrete walls. Some rolls of industrial wire and the like lay around, but nothing serious.

I could hear an alarm in the hospital, and moved forward towards the three walls, a sheet of corrugated iron turning it into a makeshift room. I was panicking for a second; there was no place to hide.

Except for a small hole in the corner of two of the walls – it looked like the earth had caved in a bit. Or it was the world's crappiest attempt at digging a basement floor. Who gave a damn?

I slipped through, and wriggled down into it. I was right; the earth was caving in – there was a sewer system down here that was too close to the surface and no one had checked before they began building. There was some dirty water, and I could hear a few rats but I jumped straight down and pressed myself against the cool concrete wall of the sewer and tried to ignore the sludge that was covering my feet and ankles.

I could hear people talking above me, and a few beams from flashlights flicked down into the sewer, but nowhere near me. I held my breath and waited patiently as I heard their voices retreat. Some of the voices had been speaking hushed Russian, but I had definitely caught some English as well.

I couldn't leave yet; it wasn't to my tactical advantage. I had to wait it out, with rats crawling up my legs, my arm bleeding quite proficiently now, and the left side of my face had swelled up already. I wanted my pink bubble bath, a cup of tea and maybe my cotton pyjamas.

I waited for hours; timed positively crawled by, like the rats. But finally, I moved towards the hole, where I climbed down. I crawled up slowly, wriggling through the hole quietly and slipped across the construction site. The gravel and broken glass dug into my feet as I raced through the construction site, towards the boundary. Beyond the boundary lay the docks, where I'd find hookers whose shoes I would steal. There was no way I could walk across the city barefoot.

It wasn't hard to find a hooker; one spotted me walking down past the warehouses, my hair hanging down around my face, a man's army jacket buttons up over my hospital gown, the blanket-skirt flapping at my legs. And a surprising amount of blood and bruising.

"Damn girl, I hope he paid you well," she drawled at me, puffing on a cigarette.

"Not a dime," I pushed my hair from my eyes. "Took my clothes and my stuff too."

"Damn," she rifled around in her purse and brought out a twist of paper. "I got something that'll take the sting out of that face of yours."

"I gotta get back and explain why I didn't get paid tonight," I sighed. "Straight across town."

"Your feet will be bloody stumps by then, girl," the girl shook a pill into her hand. As she swallowed it, my fist hit the back of her head and she was out like a light. I took her shoes; impossibly high silver stilettos with pink rhinestone flowers over the straps. They were a size too big for me, and my feet throbbed as I straightened. I took the black scarf from her hair too, using it to knot my hair back in a ponytail, and ten dollars from her purse.

I slipped her I.D. from her bag. Donna Miller; poor thing was going to wake up barefoot now. But she'd be fine – whatever pill she popped would make her forget about me and explain away her unconscious state.

She'd be fine.

And I began walking – I stuck to streets that didn't have sector cops lounging around them, moving as quickly as I could in my borrowed shoes. I only turned my ankle twice in however many blocks I walked.

The sight of Foggle Towers was almost enough to make me cry with relief. I think I did shed a few tears as I stepped into the elevator and hit the button. And I gazed into the mirror panels in the elevator; my face was grey and white on one side, and swollen purple and black on the other. The stitches in my cheek had come open and there was a trail of dried blood down my cheek to my chin. My hair hung in rats tails, mattered beyond recognition. I just stared blankly at my reflection, and waited for the elevator to reach Logan's floor.

I didn't recall instantly what happened to my keys, so I knocked and inspected my nails. Ripped and bloody; manicures were wasted on me. And my head was hurting.

It was Logan who swung open the door, as if he was waiting for someone.

"Is Zack still here?" I asked in a small voice.

"Shit." Logan stared at me. "Zack, get in here."

Zack looked pissed as he strode through the room. Actually, more than pissed; he hadn't looked like that since he saw my last AmEx bill. But as he caught sight of me, Logan's arm around my waist, leading me into the lounge room, he froze.

"Where the hell have you been?" he demanded, coming around to my other side.

"Saving your sorry ass," I said as Logan went to get the First Aid kit. "I need a shower."

"You need medical attention," Logan called from the other room.

"So help me god, if you take me back to the hospital," I snapped as Zack propped me up on the couch.

"You've been to the hospital," Zack repeated, beginning to unbuckle the shoes of doom.

"Yes," I said. "Where's Max?"

"Asleep," Logan said. "So is Evie. I'm going to call Bling over. You need to have a bath and get some clean clothes on." Logan slipped off into the kitchen to call Bling. Poor Bling; it felt like he was on call with us; constantly patching us up or something.

"You want me to go home and get you some clean clothes?" Zack. He'd untied the blanket-skirt and taken the scarf out of my hair.

I shook my head, suddenly bone tired. "Help me in the bath?" I said pathetically, standing. He followed me in.

The bath was deliciously warm, and Max bought great bricks of rose scented soap and body gel. I hissed as my cuts hit the soapy water, but damn it was good to get the muck off of my feet and legs. Just as I settled back with the soap, Zack shook his head.

"Get out again, and I'll refill it," he said, offering me a bathrobe – a worn out red one that smelt of Maxie's perfume.

"What?" I looked around me; the water was grey with dirt.

"Wash your hair under the shower before you get back in," Zack said as I stepped out. "Your hair will just make the bath dirty again."

I nodded, shedding the robe and stepping into Max and Logan's amazing shower. It was a glass cage with two shower heads and little racks full of bath products – it took half a bottle of Max's flower scented shampoo for my hair to rinse clean; my hair seemed lighter, free of the dirt and city filth.

I climbed back into the bath, my whole body aching like a bitch, my hair pinned up on my head.

"Everything hurts," I closed my eyes, sinking into the warm water.

"What happened?" Zack's voice was soothing, as he stood against the wall, watching me.

"…" I didn't know where to start. "There's a Russian company coming after us. I didn't know they were so far ahead in their plan but…" My voice trailed off. The hot water felt so good.

"I'll be back," Zack slipped from the bathroom, leaving me to doze in the hot water. My behaviour was typical; X5s turn to sleep to allow their bodies time to heal. My head felt like it was floating. I barely noticed when Zack returned with fluffy towels and a pair of Max's pyjamas. I know he wrapped me in the towel, kissing my neck and helping me out of the bath.

The pyjamas were coral coloured, a bizarre shade any time of the day, and made from modal, which is the softest and most comfortable pyjama fabric in the face of existence. The pyjama top had string straps that slipped off my shoulders so many times, that Zack knotted them at the front.

The rest of the evening is kind of fuzzy with my exhausted state. Bling was waiting for me with a much larger First Aid kit than Logan had. He restitched my cheek and arm, bandaged both my feet and my swollen cheek. Logan forced me to drink a mug of tea so sweet I almost gagged, and Bling sent me off to the guest room with some pain killers.

Logan's guest room had been redecorated while I was in L.A.; a double bed had replaced the single, and there was now a full length mirror and a dresser in there. I crawled under the blankets to the furthest side of the bed, against the wall, and curled up in a ball. I think I was technically asleep before I even climbed into the bed.

I remember sleeping and trying to find something in my pockets, when I was shaken awake. Logan leant over me, light spilling in from the other room.

"Jondy, what's wrong?" he said calmly. "You were calling out."

"In my pockets. They're in my pockets." I have no idea what pain killers Bling had given me but I was suddenly wide awake but incoherent and disoriented. "I took them so they couldn't reload. I couldn't kill them, Logan. I'm not a killer."

"Calm down, Jon." Zack appeared next to Logan. "We've got them. Go back to sleep. I'll come in soon." He knelt across the bed, and pushed my hair behind my ear and somehow lay me back down whilst I babbled about killing people – or in my case, not killing people. "Sleep."

It seemed like my body was taking his orders all of a sudden, because my eyes slid shut the second they both left. But I could hear their voices outside my door.

"Calm… where's… don't mind…"

"Of course… bathroom… stay…"

I was out before I could make sense of any of the conversation, happily drugged. It was later Zack came back in, stripped down to his boxers and climbed in next to me, pulled me into his arms.

"You feel okay?" he murmured in my ear.

"Uh huh," I rested my head against his shoulder. "Just don't go anywhere, okay?"

"Okay.