Rating – PG-13 (suicide mentions, swearing)
Summary – Walls are beginning to crumble.
Disclaimer – I don't own Dark Angel. I'm merely borrowing it for a while; I'll return it fairly intact soon enough.

Notes: Important: Themes get a bit heavy from here on in. I think it probably presses the boundaries of the PG-13 rating. If you think I need to up the rating let me know.

THIS CHAPTER HAS SUICIDE MENTIONS. It is only fair that you are warned. It is not in any graphic detail, or any real detail, but it is there.

Take note of the above warning.

Please read and review.

This is the first new chapter in quite a while. Two years, I think.

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The woods are lovely, dark and deep
But I have promises to keep
And miles to go before I sleep. – Robert Frost
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October 1999

"She tried to kill herself!" Shauna was shaking with fury, or maybe hypoglycaemia. She put her hands on Lydecker's desk and leaned forward until their noses were around six inches apart and glared at him. The solid wood beneath her palms helped make her feel slightly steadier, so she could be reasonably sure Lydecker wouldn't notice her trembling.

"You should have noticed she was unstable and reported it." Lydecker remained calm and apparently unperturbed by her temper, which was no mean feat. Better people than him had been known to tremble when faced with Shauna in all her fury. Of course, as Lydecker had about as much emotion as a block of wood, she supposed that someone else's rage meant very little to him.

"So you're saying this is my fault?" she spluttered, and for a second she was so angry that her vision fogged. Actually, it had been doing that a lot lately, whether she was angry or not. She put a hand to the side of her head to keep from fainting. Fainting? I've definitely got to calm down. Since when do I faint?

It was no good. Shauna had been having trouble for a while now. Dizzy spells, exhaustion, headaches, nausea, loss of appetite. Oh yeah, her life was a barrel of fun. Most of the time all she wanted was coffee and something to stop her head pounding. Christopher wanted her to see a doctor, but she had flat out refused. She did not need someone poking at her unnecessarily.

The world wobbled as she shook herself, and leaned back. Loss of concentration had also been a problem.

Shauna carried on, despite her lack of focus. "Melissa sees at least one doctor a day, plus any number of specialists and psychologists. She's under constant surveillance – where was whoever that was supposed to be watching her? It's not me, not during the night."

Lydecker's expression darkened – she'd hit something with that last comment and she felt a small flare of triumph through her rage and light-headedness. Obviously, someone had been less than vigilant. Well, whoever it was she'd be damned if she played scapegoat just because of her origins.

Earlier that day, Shauna had opened Melissa's door to collect her for her first doctor's appointment, only to find a semi-conscious woman, cause of illness fairly obvious. It was an awful sight, even to someone who knew death. There was nothing worse than finding someone who had tried to take their own life. Such an experience was painful to anyone involved, particularly when you knew that there was always a better way. Even now bile rose in Shauna's throat and she had to swallow.

At any rate, a now very angry Melissa was strapped to a bed. She and the baby would be fine. Which was a relief. Two months ago one of the surrogates had miscarried. Shauna had heard that it was self-induced. The experience had been pretty awful and not something she wanted to go through again.

Lately, there had been a lot of ill feeling and anger amongst the surrogates. Aimed at Manticore and themselves. The women resisted. The ones before had just done what was required of them, waiting until they could leave; these ones deliberately did as they were told not to.

About four months ago two women started a hunger strike. They were promptly restrained – standard procedure for the problematic – and drip-fed. Both were gone by this time, and Shauna had reason to suspect that once the babies had been born they had not simply left, but Manticore locked them away. Disobedience was not tolerated. Exposure was forbidden.

This was all fairly recent. The troubles had only started this year. Previously, things had lain dormant. But now…Melissa's attempted suicide was just the most current problem. There had been another attempted kidnapping. Shauna had not been so quick on her trigger this time. While the would-be kidnappers had not come close to the women, Shauna had not managed to get any of them. She had sighted one, but then thought it was Theresa. The incident had jolted her so badly she had not been able to shoot.

Afterwards, she cursed herself. Even if it was Theresa, she still should have been able to pull the trigger. That's what she was paid to do. That's what she was trained to do.

Realising she'd lost her grip on reality again, Shauna pulled herself back to the present. "I'm only here to act as a bodyguard. I'm not a head-shrinker. I was led to believe all the surrogates were healthy. I assumed that meant mentally as well." Assumptions are the mother of all fuck-ups. The words of a friend ran through her mind.

"They are. You are around them constantly, a behaviour change that could lead to something such as suicide should have come to your attention." An edge to Lydecker's words and a set to his jaw indicated his growing anger. It's always the ones closest to them who are last to know. She bit back the comment. It would do her more harm than good.

Suddenly Shauna was tired of shifting blame. It had happened: who cared now? The baby was all right; so was Melissa – at least physically. She would spend the next few months strapped to a bed, only allowed up for the health of the child. Then she would be released or, more likely, subdued. And in little over a year Shauna herself could leave, and never think about this goddamned place and its goddamned child-soldiers ever again.

"Whatever." She said aloud, having more and more trouble focusing. The world had acquired a grey-tint (or was that just the décor?) and seemed to be hazing over. "I take it Melissa is going to be one I have to re-adjust my schedule for?"

"She is not to have any contact with the other surrogates. She will have constant supervision—" despite her current trouble in concentrating, Shauna struggled to suppress a quirk of her lips. The surrogates were supposed to be under constant supervision as it was— "but she will need to be escorted to her doctors and other appointments. As such, I am going to assign the X1 guards to you again."

Shauna was really not feeling well, she knew she should not be happy with whatever Lydecker had just said, but she really wasn't sure what he was saying. Somewhere over the last sentence or two, listening had become a skill she'd lost. Damn, but her head hurt, and nausea was tossing around in her stomach.

She felt sick and weak. All she knew was that she had to get out of there before she collapsed or threw up or something. "All right," the young woman managed, hoping it was the required response. Then, oblivious to the odd look Lydecker shot her way and not caring for the moment how she might seem, she all but fled his office.

Out in the hall, the little amount of energy she had used to escape Lydecker deserted her. It took everything she had to walk down the hall at a crawling pace with one hand attached to the wall to keep her from falling. Her vision was almost completely greyed out now.

Shauna's steps faltered and stopped completely. She brought one hand up to her forehead, but it was too late. As everything went dark and her legs disappeared beneath her, Shauna heard shouts of alarm.

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Lydecker sighed, to all appearances Shauna had just stumbled out of his office. There was something wrong with the girl; she was extremely pale, and very gaunt. The young bodyguard had always been small and petite, but now she resembled a skeleton with black hair.

Why hadn't she protested the X1 guards? She was usually very vocal about being assigned them. Apparently she took them as an insult to her abilities. Just like about everything else he had done.

Although he had to admit she was good – very good – she could be as much trouble as she was worth. If he had to make the decision again he would not bring her in. Yes, she had, on various occasions saved the lives of the surrogates and the babies, in turn saving Manticore a lot of taxpayer money, but the trouble she created gave him some monster headaches.

On the other hand, she was not just good at what she did. She was also an example of what the X-series should be. Ignoring the X2s, the current X-series were top of the range. When it came down to strength, speed, ability, teamwork and even intelligence, they beat Shauna easily. However, Shauna had one major benefit: she could think for herself. Trained to work on her own she was the best at what she did.

This is what he had in mind for the X5s. They would be able to think and operate as one, but they would be able to use their initiative in a way that the other X-series could not. X5 would be everything Shauna was and more, and they would be unstoppable.

So Shauna was only partly there for defence – she was also there for observation. That was something that would make her very angry if she knew, as she hated to be watched or feel like her privacy had been breached in some way. To know she was being observed like this would infuriate her.

However, X5 was Lydecker's project. It was the only one he had been involved in since the beginning. And X5 would be a success, where others had failed. Nothing and no one would stop him from achieving his goal of the ultimate X-series. He had been present at every birth so far, and would be for every following one. He would personally make sure everything went perfectly. Nothing would go wrong with his X-series.

So, it was a pity he needed Shauna this much, because if she put her mind to it, she could be a big problem. Particularly now she had subverted Christopher Mason—

Lydecker's train of thought was cut off by shouts from outside his office. In the corridor, he found several soldiers racing about like headless chickens and Shauna lying in a heap on the floor. It was almost a pity that it was her who was unconscious, as prior to this the young woman had proven to be able to hold her own in a crisis. Lydecker couldn't say the same for the rest of the idiots around here.

Great, just great, he thought to himself, as he moved over to the inert form and felt for a pulse. She better not be dead.

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