Title: White Noise
Author: Lexie Jayne
Fandom: Dark Angel
Characters: Jondy, Zack
Prompt: Friends.
Word Count: 1 319 words
Rating: PG
Summary: They don't sleep, but lie next to each other and pretend that what they have is normal, and what they have will last.
Author's Notes: A back story and continuation to my one-shot Let GoThe idea niggled at me. Each part uses a prompt as given by fanfic100 at livejournal.
Thank you very much to HoneyX5-452, Montana Magic and ZombieGurl98 for your lovely reviews
III. Friends
Jondy wakes up to Zane sitting by her bedside with a mug of cold, sugary tea and a concerned look on his face; she is wrapped in a grubby woollen blanket with more holes than fabric, sweat clinging to her skin like a thousand little bugs.
She accepts the tea cup, drinking greedily; cold tea with half a dozen heaped spoonfuls of sugar has always been her weakness. Something about it goes hand in hand with fluffy bath towels, flirty sundresses and a family history in photographs rather than pale, spidery scars.
Her head hurts as she regains her equilibrium, and realises she's clad only in her bra, which is now mysteriously missing one strap. She shakes her head slowly to clear it and looks at Zane, tugging the old blanket tighter around herself.
"What happened?" Her voice sounds scratchy, and the scent of blood hovers in the air.
Zane forces her to lie down again, and goes to get a medic to examine her. The blanket smells like cigar smoke and peppermint chewing gum, a scent that makes her want to vomit; something she's been doing a lot of lately. Alec laughs at her, but keeps her secret; Alec's like the brother she never had when she was growing up, her best friend, no matter how Max glowers at her or how Zack watches him.
Something falls into her lap – one of her tops, grey – and she looks up to Zack, with dark circles around his eyes and a grimace that makes him seem like he's in pain just by looking at her.
"Thought you might need this," he says gruffly and leaves her to struggle into the top with one arm patched together like an old pair of socks. The top is one of her favourites, the softest she owns, and she rationalises that if he went to the trouble of bringing it to her, he's not pissed at her.
Yet, of course. Alec keeps telling her to come clean.
The medic is back with a worried looking Zane. Her shoulder aches, but the medic assures her there is no infection and she'll be fine. Jondy pretends the word of a sixteen year old is reassuring, no matter who trained the kid. She leaves the medic corner and retreats to her own little area, with the curtain around it, where her blankets don't smell like cigars or artificial peppermint.
Her head still hurts. She lies down, slipping her hand under her jumper to rest her hand against the small bulge and hopes that nothing has gone wrong before she can make a decision about what to do. Alec's joked about passing the kid off as his, his eyes full of sympathy, but she doesn't need both Max and Zack's wrath falling upon her.
She curses herself an idiot for getting involved with Zack in the first place – CO, Alpha male, and all that sick shit that Manticore forced upon them by adding some feline DNA to the mix. She should've just left it at a few flirtations and some chaste kisses.
She snorts with laughter at the thought of 'chaste' and 'Zack' in the same sentence and wonders what the medic gave her; she's positively loopy. And she closes her eyes for just a bit.
She doesn't know how long she slept for but she wakes to a shadow falling over her. Zack. She knows him too well. He stands before him, the same grim expression across his face as earlier. She rolls over and looks up at him, with a small smile, and motions for him to lie down beside her. She doesn't expect him to, but he does, their hair mingling on the beat up pillow. He rests his hand on her arm and she closes her eyes, hissing.
He knows. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Waking up half naked didn't really clue her in, but it does now as he lies beside her, his chin on her shoulder. The curtain separating them from the prying eyes of the rest of Terminal City.
Weakness is a human trait, she can admit that freely now. Doesn't mean either of them have to display it to a room full of virtual strangers.
Neither of them have said a word.
Zack pulls himself up hours later; she's dozing, letting sleep heal, but he has guard duty. Her red hair – longer and darker red that when she first arrived in Terminal City, tangled and sticking to her sweaty face. He covers her in a blanket and leaves to keep watch.
She joins him hours later, carrying some dented cans of soft drink, and wearing clean clothes. Her hair is scraped back into a ponytail, which only makes her eyes seems bluer. She hands him the drink and pulls a packet of biscuits from her jacket pocket.
"Slim pickings tonight," she offers him a ghost of a smile and he somehow manages to return it, as she rips them open and takes one. He follows her lead, and takes a bite into them. Stale, chocolate and cherry flavoured, and they both simultaneously spit the offending biscuits out.
"That was disgusting," she winces, taking a large sip of her drink. "God, where does Alec find this shit?"
"How far along are you?"
Silence. If there were crickets in Terminal City, Zack is positive he would be able to hear them about now. He didn't mean to say that, but nothing else they'll talk about seems as important.
The expression on her face can only be described as unhappy, and she tips some of her drink out, letting it splash onto her boots. "Fifteen weeks. When did you work it out?"
"When the medic was stitching you up yesterday." A lie, but only by a few hours. Little details can be lost in the face of this disaster. "Does anyone know?"
"Alec… he helped me find a doctor who I could trust." She shrugs; her shoulders still look thin underneath her sweatshirt. "I think Syl's guessed, but she was with Tinga."
She looks very small standing there, looking at the ground and her now-sticky boots. He is reminded of the little dark haired girl she once was and reaches out for her, resting his hand on her shoulder. Her face tilts upwards, her eyes sad.
They both recognise this as The Moment; no turning back. They aren't siblings anymore – they are too far gone for that anymore. He was a fairly crappy brother to her anyway, he thinks. They were never each other's significant other or 'partner'; the words girlfriend and boyfriend aren't apart of Zack's vocabulary, and it would require a level of affection that neither of them think that they're capable of.
And they won't be lovers anymore, because they've fucked that up spectacularly. Zack can't help but wonder how badly they'll do as parents to the baby. They'll have to be friends now, because she knows him too well and he knows her not well enough.
He hugs her tight and she rests her head on his shoulder and reminds herself that she never thought this would last, and feels ashamed to wish she'd never come to Terminal City. She is not fit to be a mother, not now or ever, and this was never part of her plan.
And she turns around and vomits into the gutters of Terminal City, he brushes her hair off her face like a friend would. And she vomits some more.