Strange Growths

by Cakes Blargh

Patrick Gordon. Accountant, divorcee, and attentive father. His bowling league think he's a little weird, but a nice guy. He's not what his mother wanted him to be... but when his 'brother' comes calling, he might have to embrace his family legacy after all. Sometimes a Pariah just can't run far enough away.

3. She Rises

AN: Revamped 11/06/18

Chapter Two: She Rises

---

Love or attachment did not come naturally, specifically for another that wasn't family. He did not come to love his children in a snap.

He supposed that his life as a lab rat had marked him emotionally impaired; after all, he blamed his treatments there that brought him to be separate from his mother mentally. He questioned like the scientists, he didn't accept like Blackwatch, but he loved his mother like how she loved her children… family, and he was inhumanly patient despite all they put him through.

Undoubtedly, the last trait was what made him capable of learning to understand humans… despite his distaste on the species.

But that was the thing, he only loved family and only the family. It came natural to him despite his way of showing his love. Links, connection, whole, he was born with them. The moment he breathed, the moment he entered the world, he was never alone, he was a part of family. Family never hurt him. Family never abandoned him. Family loved him, another son that only loved, but sweet dreams were far from the truth of reality.

His sisters had it easy.

How family loved was different from how humans loved another. He noticed how in family, there was no love like the ones human have for their life partners, or friends. Even the similar family love the humans have with their children or siblings weren't the same.

In family, there was no love him or her, nor love you or them, not even love this individual or that separate being. No lust, no romantic attraction, but attachment though, there was only… us. It was natural, something part of him, something easy to do even though mental scars held him back. But to feel, to love something entirely not connected…

If she was less of a husk… would she have done something?

Another experiment. He wanted to know, he wanted to understand. Curiosity. It always began with curiosity. His mother loved the humans and he wanted to find the reason why, his own reasons and not the hive's. She was a human after all and he couldn't ignore her origins.

His current life, in a way, began from that. A way to see if he could catch those fleeting emotions of human life, feeling without infecting, understanding without knowing their mind.

He stole a fiancé's place, his girlfriend none the wiser when she kissed his lips as her real lover laid unconscious. The next, a child as the mother crooned over him while he silently wondered was this how it felt to be loved by a human mother.

He even became a sister to an annoying brat, just to see the fuss about sibling squabbles as none existed in the hive. He had nothing to do, he became anyone that struck his curiosity. It didn't last as boredom would follow.

None felt natural, except for being a homeless wanderer. Mostly, he kept his distance.

If she was more…human, would she have felt more?

So he made an identity for himself, to make him… human, not a doppelganger. But something had to be done about this feeling problem. Patrick Gordon could not exist for a long time. Patrick Gordon could not be human if he didn't feel the humane feelings. He may be a great imitator, but he would grow bored.

He needed something strong, something like the links to keep him going or hold him back from breaking that image. But to establish links was to defeat the purpose of making himself man. So something like the links, an attachment, a motivation, fondness for something to make him care at least. Love was the simplest answer. But he was incapable of it! Incapable to feel for himself and so he used the memories he stole, imitate the feelings he found in them. Even then it wasn't the same… it wasn't his.

It came from someone else.

Take Sasquatch, he did not save her because he loved her. He saved her because her owner loved her. In the end, he came to love her in his own way and that was easy because now, she was connected. He could understand her, her simple thoughts, her amusing happy dreams of chasing prey and running under the sun, her happiness.

But then… that didn't really come from him, but more from natural reaction that was part of him considering she has become family.

He learned from this that he could only love his family, and only love like family.

Was she only able to do nothing, feel only nothing?

He didn't know how his mother did it, loving humans with the way they are, but then she saw them as children, nothing else. Not like humans who loved another with different levels and combinations of intimacy, passion, commitment and for many, many reasons that was to do with their identities and the chemicals in their brain. Humans felt different type of bonds with each other. Strange. In the hive, there was only one type. One strong, tight bond.

Since it was his inhuman nature that got in the way, he had to change his nature. He had to switch something in him biologically. His virus made him capable of controlling everything in the biology, including the release of hormones and the chemicals. He just needed to figure out how his body worked.

It was a moment of his life where he went through intense mood swings. Happiness, anger, moderate sadness, depression. He was some crazy hobo guy in the street who must had taken drugs of a new kind. But all of the feelings were called, they weren't natural reactions, they were voluntary. Controlled. A snap of a finger.

And then he pressed the right switch, and hopefully he thought it was love or maybe it was a different kind of obsession? It made him care at least. It made him do stupid things. It made him feel… extremely excited. It freaked out his ex-wife when the first time they were officially a 'couple'.

But it wasn't enough. It was not what he was looking for. He wanted something long lasting. Something like the links. Attachment. That was it.

Cue more freaking out from his ex-wife at his sudden extreme clinging behavior. But she was patient. Then everything reached the right clicks and level.

But was it love? It was controlled, voluntary.

But it was the closest he would ever feel the love that humans have for another.

And then she left, and he learned that these humane feelings were a double edge blade.

So it was love.

And as quickly he fell in love, he fell out with a biological switch. When he was in love, he hypothesized he would feel regret at least when he reversed his switch. Because love was important, it was something to be cherished, it was… unique.

When he did reverse the switch, he felt… nothing.

Nothing but a husk. Nothing but mere dreams in her head.

No regrets, and it was not at his control. The empty feeling was natural, familiar. Empty, that was what Philip Greene felt for humans. He remembered at least that it was something to regret. But remembering and feeling regret were two different things.

Right now, he cared for his children to know the gravity of his actions. To tell what he'd exactly done to make himself care for them, what he could do, it would hurt them because… could it be called love when it had to be switched on?

Could he even become human?

Philip Greene would never love humans. Wasn't capable at all, biologically and mentally. Philip Greene would only watch them out of interest. But Philip Greene was too curious. Patrick Gordon was the answer to that curiosity.

So was it love?

Was it?

Now Zeus though was interesting. Zeus had no links. Not even memories or feeling for another of his own. Zeus began with nothing.

He had nothing to influence him. No hive, no memories, just his own viral nature and the empty template of a psychopathic scientist. In the end, the former spoke louder. Nature, that spoke to be whole. Or was it some remnants of human nature and decency left in him?

When he learned he had a sister who would be lost soon, he freaked out. If he wanted information, he would have consumed her. But he didn't, showed that there was something in him that cared. It was amusing to watch him, Zeus unconsciously clinging to what he thought was family.

Dana. The sister.

He had naturally reacted to care for another without links… no trouble at all in attaching himself to what he thought was family, when he should have because there was nothing to influence him, no memories for him to emulate what he felt to her, no attachments of any kind. Just his own nature. He had more in him to care than he had… Pariah thought bitterly.

Zeus did cheat, his willingness to assimilate humans and their nature might have made him grow to care, but then he didn't seem to grow other screwed-up inclination humans tend to hide. Perhaps it was all him, he had easily cared for the girl without struggle, or perhaps it was the lingers of his viral instinct, seeking family of its own.

Lost child. Lost child. Deaf and blind. No links, as the hive had whispered. Mother had thought it was a cruel existence for her child born to be like that, Zeus running to what he thought was family.

Family was everything to her, to them. So mother planned. Mother loved too much. She wanted to save him, and she got what she wanted. A daughter and a loyal son that would do anything for her sake. But nothing was as simple as that, dreams however pleasant and sweet were not the reality. Alex would likely do the one responsible thing if the worst happened, and then what?

"I did not save the girl for her sake," Pariah told Zeus as they stood on the hospital's rooftops. "I saved her for you. And for mother. That was something I can agree with."

Alex looked at him in surprise.

He had only the girl and his own growing memories living in this bitter, lonely world, but despite those ties alone, Pariah doubted they were enough. What then if they were gone? The reasons he built for himself, to stop himself, that put his place in this world. Zeus had only his rage and his inhuman nature. Not the best of combination, if anything about his massive destruction on others and the demons he no doubt have to deal with.

And not everyone dealt with their demons well.

Something like Zeus was best to be watched or dead… or tied down. Out of convenience, for mother, and perhaps his curiosity getting the better of him. He did what he had to. Never say he was a son who never loved family when here he was, having done mother's will.

"You may call my mother a monster, but she was still a mother despite her… logic and state." Pariah pursed his lips as they stood beneath Minnesota's cloudy night sky. Green eyes distant as he told him, "She wanted to immortalize her, so even when the girl is gone and lost, she would stay forever, permanent in the hive, something a part of you once the links established. I suppose mother is not really unhappy at being consumed by you."

She would be a part of him forever, a living memory that stirred and sleep, always there whispering, much like what Hope was to her.

Pariah smiled. "But it would be an inconvenience."

"The last thing Greene felt was fear."

And she isn't my mother…

Pariah smiled wryly at that.

"Of what, you?" He chuckled. "She's our mother, Zeus. You wouldn't have existed if it weren't for her blood giving that template that was you."

Alex gave a huff at that.

He just blinked at that before continuing, "Mother feared everything would be for nothing. Anyone would have felt that during their last moment on Earth. She did not fear her end, just everything turning into oblivion." He turned and smiled at him. "You were her end, but you were also something that would bring oblivion despite everything she'd done."

"I didn't. And I didn't stop the nuke for whatever reason you're thinking," Zeus growled.

Pariah sighed. "You still don't understand," he said the last part quietly. "Why did you save those humans, why did you save the girl?"

"None of the reasons you're thinking about."

"Think whatever you want, Zeus. But whatever reasons you saved Manhattan isn't so far from what mother wanted."

It was all they have, this family. What were they without them?

Destruction, another kind of stagnancy? Creatures designed by science to be whatever humans designed them to be.

This inclination for them, Pariah smiled to himself, to seek out connections, to be connected, whether through links or illusionary bonds, they were the stronger ties. The same nature that ironically would hurt and kill them, that would make monsters that consume uncountable amount of lives.

Most would have given up what holds they have if knowing this, but he didn't, Pariah looked at Alex.

While he did.

---

She stirred, and she saw red. Her mouth opened to scream, but it came out as a heavy gasp. Meaningless sounds passed through her as she tried to move but found her bones so heavy, her flesh pressed and weighing down on her.

She cried silently, wanting to squirm, wanting to run, except some monstrous hold was around her, keeping her there.

"Dana! Hey! Hey!"

Blue eyes. Blue. Worried. Eyes.

"It's okay, it's okay. Everything will be alright." Warmth surrounded her, and she shivered then cried more into the gentle hold, words passing out of her mouth sluggishly.

"It's okay," her brother's voice murmured into her ear. "I'm here now. I'm here."

Nothing came out of her mouth, instead she ran into the welcoming warm blackness that held her.

---

Patrick quickly pressed his fingers against Archer's neck. Blood had spilled from the back of her head, and he grimaced before looking at the slight crack in the wall through the clear plastic behind her. Thankfully, the woman was unconscious and wasn't thrown through the quarantine tent. It would've made a mess if she was. He would have to make her think she had tripped and fell.

"Not Ragland, he's fine," Alex's voice cut in when he turned to the stout male doctor. "He knows."

Patrick just glared at the doctor before approaching the bed, a cold icy warning glance though stopped him. Zeus held the girl in his arms and murmured comforting words as she silently wept. Her shoulder shook as she hid and curled in his hold.

"Tell me exactly what happened?" he asked, not caring who answered.

"She's been stirring for the past few days," he heard the doctor answer cautiously. "Her blood had shown negative on the virus. Her scans read she's fine, her body completely healthy without any marks from cancer," Ragland said in quiet amazement. "This is the first time she has woken up."

"And usually coma patients are not this excitable or capable of moving this much after what their body went through?" Patrick said drily at him.

Ragland nodded before giving him that curious gaze then at the blank face of Archer who had got up. "Who is this acquaintance of yours, Alex?" he asked.

"The closest thing to a brother for him," Patrick drawled.

He blinked before looking at them back and forth.

Older than Mercer probably by ten years, a dark blond buzz cut hair, green eyes with speckled of amber-yellow, pale as death, had similar height and stature only just a bit leaner. Alex's skin was more of a sickly pale tone, belonging to a corpse literally. From the rare glimpses he had seen, black hair lay under those hood, and his piercing blue eyes held an inhuman silvery quality in them.

Even their style of clothes hardly matched and how they held themselves was different. For one, compared to Alex, the older man was dressed in a typical mature civs clothes, the dark grey khaki pants with silver belt and tucked dress shirt that were spotless and unwrinkled.

Alex with his black leather motorcycle jacket and brown sweater hood just looked like a well-off drug dealer. Ragland did find his current clothes asking suspicion of his character.

The only familiarity between them was their stature. Hardly any family resemblance between them… besides the warning bells, simple goosebumps, chills and spikes from the body that tensed, edging to burst into flight, flight, flight when they enter the room. The off-ness they seemed to give off.

Patrick just ignored the observation he was going through and kept his gaze on the siblings.

"She asleep?" he asked.

"Yeah," Alex answered quietly before placing her back onto the bed gently.

"She's scared," Gordon noted. "I could wipe her memory," he suggested lightly, earning a suspicious glare. "About that day she was taken. Permanently too."

"No." Alex shook his head vigorously. "It's her choice."

"She's not in the right condition to make that choice."

"Leave it, Pariah!" Alex snapped viciously, not in the mood to humor him.

Patrick just rolled his eyes then raised both his hands lightly. "Just helping," he drawled before going back to the Archer doctor, then stopped. His voice was strangely quiet when he spoke again, "She can see red."

"Explain," Alex said, matching his quiet tone.

"Visions, hallucination, the Reason brought before her eyes every damn time," Patrick continued, his eyes distant.

Hallucination, Ragland frowned.

"She shuts her eyes, she sees it. She opens them, it invades into reality."

"What do you mean?" he heard Alex's voice ask sharply.

"I'm saying she's brain damaged. That's the one thing I can't fix, unless I literally do some tweaking to her brain," Patrick told him and then frowned.

"No." He heard the expected answer from him. "You said she was cured," Alex pointed this out flatly.

He turned his head, gazing at him slightly. "She is. I just don't know at what cost though," he said, then exhaled. "I think I'll stay for a few more days. Better yet, help the arrangement for her transfer to Houston."

He had to make sure. He had to watch her. Just in case. Without his virus in her, and hers inactive… and he was in no way wanting them activated simply because of just in case. He had no way other than the physical way to keep watch on her. And he did not want to risk alerting Zeus what he could do on the biological level.

Then there was him, he consumed mother and considering her influences, Zeus was likely susceptible to fall into his nature despite his stubborn personality.

He was troublesome, and if mother had him, he would be more troublesome.

"And why?" Alex shot back, standing up now. Ragland took that moment to leave. Things could go wrong quickly now that Alex was standing, and trending toward looking more pissed than usual.

Patrick turned and gave a glare. "She's being watched, Zeus. Trust me, Blackwatch is going through every list of survivors that came off scot free, watching for any abnormal status reported on their medical conditions," he told him flatly. "And she's one special kind to receive mother's treatment. The only kind. Don't think her recovery is not going to go unnoticed when she has literally come out from a near-death experience that no one, not even in the history of reports in Blackwatch, survived when it comes to Redlight."

"You're bringing attention to yourself." Alex narrowed his eyes. Dana was undoubtedly in that spotlight. Pariah's days being anonymous would be threatened if he kept close to her. So why did he want to be close? "I hardly think you're the charitable sort."

Still cautious… and a judgmental bastard, Pariah silently thought.

"Quite the unfriendly tone you have there, when you're speaking to someone you owe her life to." Patrick turned and matched his gaze. "I'm tired, Zeus." He sighed. "And I don't want a family history repeated." No one deserves to be a test subject for Blackwatch, not even monsters.

"She's not like us." She's not 'family!' Pariah held back a wince at the silent snarl of many voices coming from Zeus.

Annoying side-effects of their temporary links, he was very aware of how much closer he was to Zeus' end of the hive as he could hear the whispers and the screams. He wished mother had solve that despairing problem Zeus had from consuming whole beings, but then Zeus would have to succumb to mother's whispering at some level. He imagined it was not something his younger brother would do.

He wondered at times how he was able to sneak up on him despite the noisy mind he had. He had sensed him coming, he even watched his progress during The Outbreak. Through the eyes of the infection, he immediately knew and sensed the stark difference between Zeus and them. It couldn't connect, it couldn't hear them, it couldn't hear us. He couldn't hear him.

That was wrong. Deaf and blind. Lost child. No kin of theirs had been born without hearing the voice of the family. This was a fundamental wrongness that should not be, a vast gap between the hive and Alex.

It was what made Zeus all the more interesting, and probably what gave him trouble in keeping him under his thumb in the first place – unlike his other siblings whom he had easily controlled while solving everyday mundane problems as well as managing the many minds of his employees.

Except Zeus established links, whatever immunity he had should have disappeared because of that. Mother must have masked him in the hive then, and to make matter worse, he had consumed her. He should've sensed him when he was nearby.

But he had turned his gaze away from the Outbreak once the three-way war had settled. The infection had been stopped and he, in turn, had grown bored of watching. There was no point of keeping track of its progress anymore, and lingering would surely leave a presence, a small trace of a feeling for those who listened too closely in the hivemind.

It was a good thing mother was more interested with her livelier children at the time.

Years hiding, keeping his body and virus asleep, believing none could hear him within the hive as proven when his sisters could not even sense nor tried to reach out to him. Being separated and had drifted far from the hivemind helped; Zeus should have been no different to his sisters.

He was young, he couldn't even sense the hivemind at first! He even disliked listening to it immensely. He should not have been able to track him at all.

Except he was wrong.

He shouldn't have kept away from the hivemind, he should have kept watching, kept track of him, even if it meant he would be heard and could be sensed from within the hive.

He really had gone sloppy and lazy, Pariah made a face. How could he not notice a yawning abyss of screaming and whispers right at his face? Why did he fail to pick him up when he was just ten paces behind?

Mother then. It was definitely mother masking him, mother who pointed to him. Perhaps she really thought he would destroy Zeus while he was naïve. Her loud uproarious hivemind even went so far to protect his presence. She even hid the girl, obscuring her voice so that he couldn't pinpoint and stop the process the girl's body was going through. In some roundabout way, she was punishing him for thinking he could stay away, in a form of a brother throwing a photocopier in the back of his head.

Sometimes, he'd forgotten Redlight was a superorganism, an almost omniscient being in the hive. A vast complex interface. Elizabeth Greene was like no other Runner because of that, not just because she made and gave birth to him.

His sisters were just pale shades of his mother when compared to the original.

Pariah sighed as the numerous thoughts swirled in his vast mind, with the ones about the girl coming to the forefront. "She holds the virus in her. She's one of us," Patrick told him tiredly.

Alex's breathing went up a notch as he glared at him, black-red tendrils flickering over his body.

"A chimera. A hybrid. Just a carrier in stage zero," he told him in a flat tone. More like a Runner in an intermediate stage, forever stunted at that stage… as she should be.

He held his hand up, in case of Mercer planned to lunge at him. He needed to explain, and Zeus wisely let him… barely, as he could hear grinded teeth coming from his brother.

"Her body had completely assimilated it." He pointed at the back of his head. "She's seeing red, she dreams red because Redlight was doing changes to the brain. It replicated from her cells, her DNA, it established links. Hivemind wouldn't exist if it weren't for these changes."

"I told you to get rid of it."

"I did rid of the Redlight strain," Pariah snapped. "I stopped Redlight with your virus, but… it resulted to a new strain. It's how your cure version went rampaging."

He heard a sharp inhale and quickly he continued, "But it couldn't control it, it couldn't change it, it couldn't assimilate it back this time. I made sure of it. I use that new strain and made her body strong enough to flush out the weaker strains."

To be honest, the new strain would've been wiped out if it weren't for the fact the body has completely accepted it in the way the Walkers, the Hunters, the Hydras and even them has accepted the virus as a part of their body. Something Zeus would want to kill him for. He blamed the changes his mother had done. Redlight always attacked the body's immunity… and the brain.

Eying him, carefully he read for any sign of aggression. And it was there, from the tight stance in Zeus' posture.

"She was at a point of no return. Redlight was… everywhere and if I got rid of it, it would still leave the damages and changes."

And her body opened to other diseases, a body that was too exhausted and in critical condition, struggling to stabilize itself despite the resources surrounding her. If she was at Manhattan, she would be, in no doubt, terminated immediately. Why leave it to chance when he had the means?

"Her body couldn't survive without the virus, just as the virus couldn't survive without the body, or else the virus would've been wiped out." As well as killed her... "I had to use that new strain, and I didn't want to risk using yours." Besides, what Blacklight could do would completely butcher her already-mangled cells then undo whatever damages. It was better off fighting Redlight off and hijacking the mother's strain infection. "So technically," Pariah told him truthfully. "She. Can. Be. Or might be," he added the last part quickly. A Runner.

"You said you've cured her!"

"And I don't know at what cost!" he shouted back. "You think anyone is going to come out free from mother's virus, huh?! Especially at the level of infection she was in! She had to adapt. I forced her body to adapt!" And adaptation asked for sacrifice! Didn't he understand that?! Redlight was the next stage of what diseases could do in the future. All current cures were shit against that. Immunity meant nothing.

Pariah pinched the bridge of his nose, calming himself. "If," he stressed, "If she is what she might be, then I know what she'll be going through," he added quietly. "I can help her recover mentally. I know what to do. I know that her most bleak day would make her visions red. And then went that happens, she panics, she would stress, and she would activate something that should've stayed asleep in her for the rest of her life and leave a mess." I can keep it deactivated forever.

"She isn't cured then! She's still under the knife!"

"She is cured! Her body is recovering!" She adapted! F'ed his opinion if that makes her not human. She was the next version of human if they were to survive the Reason. Hell, she was a goddamn prototype cure in dealing with super viruses like mother's and even more. It would make her surpass super soldiers not in strengths, but in raw evolution. What temporary immunity Blackwatch had could easily be tossed aside in the future, maybe blow up in their face.

Evolution was a bitch like that. Double back-biting bitch. What blockades put would just encourage for it to grow and jump over the wall. Hence, that was why they still want something like mother… like Dana. Churning machines of the virus, so they could prepare and know what to expect.

The world was not going to be saved by him, he'd promised himself… but here he was, giving a goddamn template. He had tossed his place and responsibility onto the girl. He kept the promise he made, but he also fulfilled mother's wish and saved her son from his destructive design.

"What's stopping her from completely being a Runner?!" Alex snarled. From her being consumed inside out! From being a… creature simply wearing her face!

"Me," Patrick snapped and glared back at the icy blue eyes.

Alex just bared his teeth and turned around, huffing when he rolled his eyes. He paced around the room but continued to glare at him.

"I will keep the virus' progress deactivated forever. It was made from her. It won't harm her. Think of it as… her child." But if the mother ever comes to harm… hence why he needed to keep watch on her. Stress could activate many things in the body. The virus would want to keep its host safe.

The new virus wasn't like its mother's special strain. It didn't try to slip past under his control every damn time. It just sat in there willingly without him having to actively keep it that way.

He definitely done something right then despite using Zeus' Blacklight. It certainly surprised him he still could reprogram the virus' behavior in that level of detail… since it was very stubborn under his control, not to mention it wasn't at its full potential. Wouldn't be surprised if Zeus told him it felt like being under a vice-like grip during the temporary link.

"Look, Zeus. What defines a person?" Patrick asked, staring at the darkening look on Alex's expression, hoping he would just cooperate a bit more. "Their DNA, their memories as a whole? She has both. She never died. Her heart never stopped, neither her breathing, as well as her brain activity. Her brain. Is. Untouched." …Mostly. "She's not a copy. She's not a creature. She's still her, Zeus." Pariah looked at his brother but whatever effort he put in trying to calm him with words was failing terribly.

"If you're such a great master of control on the virus," Alex snarled. "Why couldn't you make her immune system rid the new virus once and for all?"

So he did have a grasp what was going on in the girl's body.

"Her body was spent, I did what I could do," Patrick answered honestly. "It has completely accepted it as part of its system. And like Redlight, it would ruin her immune system again if given reason to defend itself."

Infect it, usurp it, and spread it to other body's defense, defeating the point entirely.

"What it could do, what it did is the reason Redlight is gone from her body. To restart a war would mean her death. Unless, of course, we go with using my virus. "

He was not willing to go through it again when he had no idea what the new virus could do. He suspected it was like its mother, and more now because of Blacklight. It meant it could churn how many strains, independent strains, each virus mutated and replicated into different result, but unlike its mother, everything would be flawless, no mistake, deadly.

The probability that one or two strains could actually turn back on its host, if he gave the new virus a reason to counter-adapt against his control, was high. Mother's troublesome strain as well as Zeus' would surely give each virus that trait of being stubborn and slippery. But he liked challenge, he knew when it came to his virus, restarting the war would be heavily advantage on his side.

Unfortunately, it was out of the question. What the girl was now made Zeus more distrustful of him more than ever.

"I wanted her to be free of the virus!" Alex hissed.

"No, you asked for her to be cured!" Pariah snapped. "And do you really, really think anyone could be free when they specifically received mother's special attention?" This was Redlight they were talking about. With a body in critical state, he only did what he knew was best.

Pariah exhaled in frustration. Look at him, he was repeating himself here, but his words might as well be glancing off a wall.

"The girl is recovering. She's alive! She can even recover from whatever damage done to her! She can still live… Zeus."

"Yet Dana still suffers what Redlight did to her," Alex snapped and paced, a predator biding its time.

But it's not permanent! Pariah wanted to hiss in frustration. She can recover!

"She's still connected to the hive!" Alex snarled.

An after affect, the cost of adapting… But she could live with it, because he could. Because they could.

"I would be lobotomizing her brain if I were to cut the links and connection!" Pariah hissed back. It would defeat the purpose of what made her... her. She wasn't fully one of them, nor was she fully a human, she was something in between, in transition where many things were different, and more likely could go wrong permanently.

Her brain wasn't like some machine he could just rollback. What was changed stays changed, what was gone stays gone.

But they were people who could live even when most of their connections to half of their brain were severed. People who could be themselves, find themselves again even when they lost their memories. People who could still move, still talk, could still learn and be their own person, the same person even when a part of them was gone forever.

Redlight complicates that. Especially with the girl's intermediary state. Where does the virus start, and the girl began? The modified and infected brain cells? He could've done it, remove those cells and let her body filled the blanks. Change her back … clean the slate a bit.

If she was less of a husk, if she was more of a human, an empty canvas that needed his touch. Just needed some change. It was no different what mother had done to those humans in New York. No different to what he had done to himself and to those poor humans who had caught the curiosity of Philip Greene.

This time though it would be an infected that mother had chosen. Changing a Runner. Ten years ago, he would be standing before his mother and could have done the same to her.

No. That wasn't right. He didn't need to infect the brain, there was a way to recover from the effects. The girl's brain wasn't too far gone… unlike mother's.

"Do you know how to control the virus then?" Patrick challenged as Alex paced back and forth. "Do you know how to control it on the cellular level?" He glared back at Zeus.

He should've understood why the girl was like this, why there was no choice, only adaptation. It wasn't his fault those were the cost.

Except… Alex snapped instead and immediately punched him in the face. He slid across the floor and banged against the wall.

Patrick blinked in surprise then narrowed his eyes when Alex was suddenly standing over him, glaring down with hate.

"I have enough control," Alex hissed, "to stop me from punching you out of this building." He stepped back and walked away, in case he really did that. He was really tempted to do it too.

Oh this was rich. A fucking pissing contest, Pariah thought crossly. Zeus was really acting his age.

"Y'know what!" he snapped as he sat there against the wall. "Like you said, it'll be up to her! Her choice whether or not to take my offer."

"I'm not letting you talk to her."

Patrick stared at him for a long time at that. "You're really going to keep the girl from me. So much even against her choice?"

"She doesn't need to know your place in this."

Oh. This was mighty rich. Pariah blinked at that. "So I came here. Saved her. And then I'm just going to be tossed out just like that?" Well that was the first time he really felt insulted.

"You have your own life. Go back to it."

"I have every right," Pariah hissed. "To be interested in her progress!" Control freak. He breathed in at the thought. But this wasn't just control. She was an unknown factor, and that was something to be watched.

"No. You. Don't."

"Oh. Just like you! Considering, y'know, you're not who she thinks you are," Pariah snapped.

Alex spun around and snarled at that. Jackpot. He just got up and ignored the menacing look he was receiving, brushing the imaginary mess off his mackintosh jacket.

"I'm going to go shopping!" Patrick blurted.

He was going to give jack shit about this pissing contest, and really, he had better things to do than indulge his younger brother's violent nature.

"And I want you to think rationally when I do," he pointed despite the fact he was receiving bared teeth at that. "I haven't shown any, any reason at all for you to conclude all those paranoid conspiracy ideas in that dumb ass skull of yours," he told him before shaking his head in disgust.

He stormed out, not waiting for a reply.

Mother… if she wanted him to take the lead for the family, watch over them like some guardian angel as she had, well she was going to be sorely disappointed. It wasn't his fault anyway. It was just Zeus being the way he was.

Pariah just grumbled at those thoughts running in his head as he strode out of there.

---

Alex wanted to hurl something heavy. He wanted to destroy something. He wanted to hear someone scream in pain. He wanted to hear explosions.

He tugged violently at his hood instead, pacing back and forth before looking at his sleeping sister. Suddenly he was disgusted at his violent thoughts. He was… addicted to the rush of battle, the destruction, the killings. Revulsion, rage, fear filled him as well as the sinking pit in the core of his being that spoke that he had failed.

What he wanted was to rid any reason that would give Blackwatch the incentive to hunt Dana, as well make her future free of any trouble from the infection, and that included him. He'd planned to leave her. To tell her once she recovered enough.

He did not want to burden her.

He wanted to kill Pariah for making her like this! Except, a part of him remembered, this was what Redlight had done to her. Pariah just stopped it from completely worsening the damage. Or it could be Pariah just keeping her under the knife, held at hostage point...

She can recover. She can still live. But he didn't want her to live like this, to be burdened by whatever permanent scars left in her.

Alex covered his face and suddenly sat down, the sinking pit in him unbearable. It didn't matter if she lived because she was 'one of us.' Despite whatever Pariah had said, a potential Runner or not, he failed. He failed her. Greene succeeded. She was now and forever an infected.

Blackwatch, Redlight, the Reason, the truth - burdened to carry the virus and everything that came with it as long as she lived.

"I'm sorry, Dana," he whispered to the sleeping body of his sister.

---

"Can I have another toy?" Elise asked through the phone.

"No," Patrick said flatly. "You can only have souvenirs."

"Aw," she moaned in disappointment. "What souvenirs are there?" she asked.

He sighed as he gazed through the glass of the souvenirs shop. "Silverware, glasses, snow globes, key chains, t-shirt," he listed.

"Boring!" Hank's voice cut in.

"Well what do you want then?" Patrick grumbled.

"Any food there that Houston doesn't have?" Hank asked, and Patrick frowned before walking along the streets of Rochester. Food was always on Hank's mind.

"Not that I know. I'll check the supermarket," he added the list to do in his head. "Anything else?"

"Post cards. Get me some post cards," Elise said. "No, send me one. By MAIL!"

He smiled. "Alright, sweet heart. How about you, Hank?"

"Just food," the boy answered. "Also, Jess wants to talk to you. If you're done with us, yeah?"

"Pretty postcards!" Elise added in the background as her voice faded into the distance. "I wanna see what the city looks like, okay?"

He smirked before continuing. "You're doing your homework, right, Hank?" Patrick added.

"Yeah, yeah," Hank drawled.

"Sasquatch fed?"

"Yeah. But her bowl is gone."

Oh yeah… wait. He already replaced her bowl. Patrick sighed at his infected dog. Perhaps he should get a plastic one. The metal ones would only remind Sasquatch of tin cans of joy. Any of those joys put on her bowl seems to just make the bowl part of joy so she ate it whole.

Patrick added feeding bowl into the list of shopping.

"Can I go now?" Hank complained.

"You can," he said.

"Nan!" Hank's voice called somewhere distant in the phone. "Dad's done with us."

There was fumbling and adjusting, and the chirping voice of Jess invaded into his ears, "How have you been, Patrick?"

He made a face. "I'm fine," he humored her. "Is everything alright there?"

"Just lovely here. Nothing on fire!"

Good to know, he thought flatly.

"How about you, Patrick, everything alright with your family?" Jess asked politely.

No. "Everything is just fine, Jess!" he answered far too brightly.

"Oh! That's good to know. So when they're coming by?"

Probably in the next million years. "I…" Patrick hesitated. "I don't know," he told her truthfully.

"They have a home, right? I heard some of the survivors were stripped from theirs."

He grimaced at the conversation. "No, they don't have a home, Jess." He sighed. Not that he knew any of Zeus' future plan, that is.

"Oh," Jess voice turned into pity. "I heard strange tales coming from the survivors. They say some of the buildings got demolished because infection grows on them… like weeds." He could hear the frown in Jess' voice. "What kind of infection does that? They say it's a virus–"

"Best we don't talk about this on phone," he interrupted her. "For all I know, the whole mess in New York could've been hallucinated. Infection could have been airborne, would explain the red haze over Manhattan during the quarantine."

"That's frightening. But how come it didn't spread to the rest of New York?" Jess said in puzzlement. For one, there was him discouraging the infection's growth. A mess he did not want it to grow. What if mother had taken Manhattan... New York, the East of U.S, and then down south, to Houston?

He could not bear to face his mother, because he knew... he knew what he would do.

"A lot of things are a mystery," he told her.

"I noticed. The protesters been asking what was going on during the Outbreak. They really weren't clear on where the virus came from. Anyway," Jess interrupted the serious mood. "You're planning to house them?"

"Who?" He frowned.

"Your family," Jess said the obvious.

No. Yes. No. Yes. Yes, I need to watch the girl, younger brother too, just in case. No, because… "Actually, I don't know about that," he said.

"Oh, why's that? You're their only relatives, right?"

"Yes, I'm the only one," he drawled. If anything of what Blackwatch had said were true, the girl had only one sibling... well more than one now because of mother.

"Then what's stopping them?"

An asshole. "We're not on good terms," he told her, still grimacing.

"Is this why you hardly talk about your family? It's actually the first time I've heard of them," Jess added much to his… growing displeasure on the subject. "I'm sure they would understand and put aside anything that happened between you two."

If Zeus can, he snorted at the thought. "Jess, you don't know my family. They're not... well." He grimaced. "My… sibling does not make a happy camper."

"How many siblings do you have, again?" Jess asked confusingly. She might be faking that old woman image, because she was being awfully nosey about this. He narrowed his eyes at that thought.

"Two," he answered neutrally. And the extra hundreds that he bullied to death… literally. He was not a good big brother. He made that clear from the beginning when he forced two Hydras to slap themselves to death, repeatedly. And that was when he was bored. If he was serious or angry, what would happen in The Outbreak would've gone differently. Mostly the end result would be spattered useless biomass everywhere. The whole of New York dead, not just the city.

"So they're both not happy at the prospect of staying with you?"

"No, just one." He sighed. Well, he didn't know what the other one felt about this.

"Oh. Sibling rivalry, is it?" she said brightly.

"No," he said flatly.

"Then what's stopping you two?"

"Problems, Jess," he grumbled. "I… came from a not so good background."

"You, Gordon? That's surprising. You are much too sweet coming from something bitter. I never thought your family was one of those… unfortunate types."

"Not all foster families are a happy place." That was not true, but then he was truthful on the matter of having such a big family. They were noisy, they were annoying, they were needy, and mother loved them all as she loved him. He was treated no difference really. And he wouldn't have minded, but he did, old angers and questions reminded him.

"But your mother was good, right?"

She was. He did not hold it against her nature, because it was her nature that made her loved him. He wondered, if he hadn't loved her, if he let his anger took him. What would he have become? Some Blackwatch soldier. He crinkled his nose at the thought. A toy, a tool, nothing more. A mindless monster pet of theirs. A pitiful creature who let them win, who slapped his mother's love back into her face, hurt her.

But another part spoke he was still pitiful, the one full of hate, because he was the one running. Look at him, playing as a human, the creatures he mostly despised. He hadn't changed at all from that pathetic captive lab rat. Sitting there, letting them do whatever they want to him.

Really… then what of his action in fulfilling his mother's wishes? He saved Zeus. He saved the girl. He might have saved the world. But then, that was entirely up to the girl… or Zeus, but he didn't think his younger brother would be inclined to be the messiah type. It requires a holier than thou attitude or the most selfish thought. Zeus was better than the humans in terms of evolution, but he was cynical creature who knew he was no better at solving the world's problem, considering brute force and straight-forward thought was mostly his way.

This life was a phase, and he knew it was a phase. It was something a part of him would never deny… that empty runner. That part of him who just coldly felt nothing about his current life, who had even felt nothing of the inevitable coming of the Outbreak, yet it was that part of him that was curious. It led him to make the man staring back in his reflection.

It did not care; it did not regret that he didn't release the dreams of connection in the past, or even delayed his mother's will. Waiting was part of nature, in the end, it would win. He was like a virus incubating...

Nature and design, he was a shattered son because of that, and mother loved him no matter what, despite the marks on his psyche. She easily accepted, but why couldn't he?

How did his mother do it? To his eyes, she was great because of her accepting nature, or maybe it was just her brain fried of common sense and judgment. But still… that judgment had stopped a son that would have destroyed them all ages ago. Monster the world called her, but she would forever be a mother because of her undying and unprejudiced love. The world, oblivious, that the one who caused the Outbreak had also saved them from a son who would've willingly killed them all.

"She was." He smiled bitterly. "She was a good mother." She would have made a loving mother if the world did fall… it wouldn't be so bad. But, his expression darkened. It was not that simple. Her greatness was also her flaw. Because there were some things, some humans who didn't deserve such love, such grace.

He couldn't follow her nature, his nature, because of that. Because the one part that made him shattered, would rather cut, cauterize the infesting sickness that was part of humanity. That was what Blackwatch wanted, a weapon who would willingly destroy at the point of finger. How could she easily accept the filthy bad traits in them, in him? How could she accept despite all of what Blackwatch had done to her, to them? No one could love humans so much after facing what she had faced.

She even accepted the flaws in her own children. The Hunters would hunt the lower infecteds like they were foods, biomass, fuels to be used. His mother could just not see the wrongs as her children ate others, she could not understand the horrors of that. For her, it was the nature of things, becoming one. One. They lived on anyway in her mind, assimilated by the growing infection. Runners remember.

It was why Hope still cried out in her, in them, as if they were still alive. His mother, catatonic, stuck in the past, swirled by visions of the future, and him barely holding her in the present. She was lost amidst the sea of voices, in her own world with a viral copy of Hope in her head.

He was not enough for her.

Now, living as a human, what mother would do to the human race would only… degrade them, not improve. They didn't deserve mother, her grace. To feel the love, the intimacy, the potential of what a hivemind would give, it could not be so simple. Humans were not children no matter what, even if it was a merciful act onto them.

They were cancers, they would corrupt and ruin such connections. Why couldn't she see that? Look at Zeus, look at his mind. Perhaps the virus reducing them into pitiful state was mercy... on the hive that is. The sum of mankind was not a beautiful dream of painless unity, it was an amalgamation of an ugly screaming mess. A screaming mess his mother smothered and shushed with the virus and sang sweet lullabies to it.

Those chains of thoughts were what still made him reluctantly admit his mother's flaws. He simply could not accept her simple answers in this.

Besides, he already had said his farewell a long time ago. Patrick sighed.

"Hopefully your sibling would understand there's only good in your heart for what you're offering," Jess said.

He smiled fondly at the old woman. Good… there was nothing good. There was only convenience. Or maybe more. And he didn't know what that more was. Perhaps mother would know. She always had these simple obvious answers. "I hope he does, Jess. I hope he does," he told the old woman and gazed up to Minnesota's cold cloudy grey skies.

The sun was about to set.

---

She woke, eyes opening to stare at the whiteness around her. Something sweet whiffed into her nose. Flowers, lilies, her mind whispered. Her head turned slowly to her left, to see a man seated still by the chair near her, hands covering his face as he sat hunch. Curly brown mass of hair she last remembered from a long time ago were now matted black sleeks, as if needing a shower. He had been neglecting himself, she thought quietly in her staring. His hood was down, his black leather jacket missing, leaving him with his only brown zip-up sweater.

How long has he been there? Why was he sitting there, looking so… depressed?

"Alex," she called out, but blinked at the strange croaking sound that came out of her.

However weak her voice was, it seemed to jerk her brother out of his reverie. Haunted blue eyes looked up from his hands and widened slightly, softened, then changed back into something neutral.

"Dana," he breathed and immediately stood over her.

She smiled then looked down at her hand. He probably didn't realize he had grabbed hers.

"How lon–" She frowned, so surprised how hoarse her voice was.

Her brother just stared there for a while, looking at her in almost disbelieving fashion, then he blinked rapidly, moving into a blur of motion to the other end of her bed. There was a plastic jug and a mug. He poured the water then quickly grabbed the mug. Dana heard something crack and a soft curse.

The cup had broken in his hold. Something flashed on his face, but it was quickly gone, leaving a despondent look.

"It's okay," she whispered to him.

He looked up, having heard her words despite how weak it was.

"I'll get you another one," he told her gently before turning.

"Wait." He stopped and turned his head slightly. She opened her mouth but shook her head, "I-it's nothing," she whispered. It seemed silly, but she didn't want him to leave.

He stood there, staring at her concernedly for a while. "I'll go now," he said softly and walked out.

Dana laid there, half-upright, waiting, her eyes wandering around her white empty room. There was a metal trolley, which sat near her bed; a desk covered with papers and reports on the other end of the room; a board with charts and x-ray diagram. This room looked like it was a research place. Her eyes fell to the bedside table, now looked like one of those moving table, a bouquet of lilies laid on it with a card tied to its ribbon.

With a quiet grunt, she moved slightly nearer to her right and narrowed her eyes when she read the card. The writing rough but neat.

Get well soon. A.

Alex? She blinked at that and smiled then frowned. He'd never done something like that, but then this was the first time she was a patient in a hospital.

"You're up," a stranger's voice called from the end of her bed.

When did someone enter her room?

Her head turned, and her expression guarded at the green-eyes man standing in front of her bed, wearing a black turtleneck and a grey khaki with a silver belt.

Strange, she didn't hear him coming.

"They put you out of quarantine, after the tenth clearance," he told her. "Usually the process takes three days or more on each blood sample. But the recent new type of scans showed you're clean."

"Who–" she began cautiously.

"It will be up to him to tell you that," the dark blonde man told her. "Did you have a… strange dream?" he asked gently.

She shook her head. Was he her doctor or something?

"Does your sight get fuzzy, any change?" he continued despite making her uncomfortable.

She shook her head again.

"Do you remember what happened to you?"

Grimacing a bit out of annoyance, she opened her mouth but stopped, her lips went dry as her hands suddenly shook without her control. She gripped the white woolen blanket tightly as the images flashed.

Flesh, ugly slimy flesh, the claws digging into her belly, a roar sung, the street so far below and everything a red blur. Alex's desperate yet determined look on his face.

"Y-yes," she whispered, her voice shaking.

"You're alive now," the stranger's stern voice cut in. "Safe. Safe and far away from harm," he told her gently. "The quarantine is over. No monsters exist. They're all dead. You're in Rochester, Minnesota now. Not Manhattan."

She nodded weakly at that then relief washed when Alex walked in the room with a new mug.

"What are you doing here?" A surprising growl came from Alex as he slowly made his way towards her, eyes still watching on the stranger.

"Checking up on the girl," the older man answered. "And I'm going to tell her what the current plan is."

A mug filled with lukewarm water was held in front of her. She grabbed a hold of it and drank slowly while listening.

"I don't need your help anymore," Alex snapped at the stranger.

"Really?" the stranger said sardonically.

"Alex," Dana called out, resting the mug on her lap, concern at what was transpiring in front of her. "What's going on?" she asked.

"You're moving to Houston," the stranger told her.

"The hell she's not!" Alex snapped and stepped forward.

"It's her choice if she wants to go, once you tell her of the current situation. Or do you want me to do it?" the stranger said flatly, unfazed at the cold rage in Alex's face.

"Alex," she called aloud. "Who the fuck is this?" she demanded.

"Your brother from another mother," the stranger interrupted much to her growing annoyance about him.

Alex turned at her voice then looked away from her questioning eyes. "He's… an acquaintance," he answered stiffly.

That's helpful, she thought, growing frustrated at the cryptic answer. "What is going on here?" she demanded then breathed in, closing her heavy eyes, surprised at being tired already.

"You're an asymptomatic carrier," the stranger answered again.

Can't this guy just let my brother answer? She glared.

"What does he mean by that?" she asked, looking at her brother who seemed to be avoiding her gaze.

"You carry the virus, Dana. It's just… doesn't do anything to you," Alex answered, hesitating.

"Is it infectious?" Dana asked quietly. Asymptomatic… now she recalled, carriers that carried the disease but showed no symptoms, and unknowingly spread it to those in contact. She would be locked away then, if they were talking about the same virus that ran rampant in Manhattan's street. Unless there was a cure.

"No," the stranger answered this time. "They don't know you even have it. The scan shows clear because it's inactive in your body."

"And there's no way to get rid of it," Alex added viciously while glaring at the stranger.

"You want to kill her?" the stranger snapped. "We could make her go through hell again just to rid it! But hang on, she's just starting to recover," the stranger shot back. "And no, even if she gets well, the risk is undeniably high, and would damage her more since it's more efficient and better than its predecessor," he snapped, green eyes matching the icy blue. "And this time, there won't be any virus there to reverse the damage, considering that the only one there is forced to war against its host. Not even if we use your virus, because I can guarantee it would turn it against her as well."

"And yours won't," Alex spat.

"I know my virus a lot more," the stranger snapped. "And knowing goes a long way."

"W-what is going on here!" Dana snapped.

"You're a carrier," the stranger repeated again calmly.

"I know that!" she said impatiently. "But who are you–"

"Ask him." The stranger pointed at her brother before she could finish. This guy is one annoying… she fumed. "But short answer is, I'm… what he is and more," he told her.

What. He said what. That didn't go past her.

"What does he mean by that, Alex?" Dana looked up and stared at her brother.

He continued to look away from her, but she noticed he was grimacing.

"You should tell her now. Not later," the stranger told him before walking away.

"She just woke up! She doesn't need more on her mind!" Alex snapped at him.

"So it would be better later?" The stranger stopped and looked at him in a mild expression despite the glare he was receiving. "When she's snooping in confidential information that would assuredly notify Blackwatch when she needs to be in hiding? Or when she's declaring the innocence of her brother's place in the mess?"

Alex snarled when he heard that. Dana looked at her brother in surprise.

"What does he mean by this?" Dana demanded, confused and angry at being ignored.

"Tell her now," the stranger told Alex, then his expression softened. "I'm not here to get rid of your place, Zeus. But I want this mess cleared," he told him sternly. "This is her second life, new start to everything, so start it right instead of dragging the mess across."

"It's none of your business," Alex snapped.

"That's when you're wrong. You brought me into this, and I plan to see through it to the end," the stranger growled.

Both glared at each other before the stranger broke contact and walked out of the room. Oppressive silence filled in his place as she looked at her brother, waiting for him to say something, anything.

"Alex," she called out. "What does he mean by all of this?"

He said nothing, still looking away from her.

"Alex!" she demanded. "Please," she added. Talk to me. Don't close up on me, not like last time… For five years they haven't spoken to each other, she lost contact of him in high school, and that teenage girl might as well have thought he was dead.

She did not want that to happen again.

"You're tired, you need rest," Alex finally spoke.

She shook her head at this. No. Fresh out of a coma or not, he was not going to avoid this. "I'm awake enough to understand the situation. What did he mean, Alex? I want answers," her voice turned cold as she stared at her brother. "Look at me at least," she said.

She heard a shuddering exhale from him and then he turned towards her, his eyes on the floor, still avoiding her look.

"Tell me," she said to her brother. This was so entirely unlike the man she knew, who would always gaze challengingly back at the world, even at her opinion on the matter. He always had pushed her aside, and it was one of the many reasons that led to their spat. And she was not going to let him do that again, no matter what. "Please," she added again.

"I don't know how to tell you though," he said quietly. "It's a complicated mess."

She sighed. "Did you remember at least and found out what you were looking for?" she asked. The Outbreak, Hope, Elizabeth Greene, Gentek's suspicious project, and of course the virus.

She knew he was involved in this mess. But just how much and why?

"Yeah." His voice sounded so bitter.

"Why don't you start there?" She was an investigative journalist, and part of it was to ask the right question to get a person talking. Stories weren't poured out of speculation, they needed proof and witness else the writer would sound like an insane trash.

"Are you sure you want to–" Alex hesitated when he noticed the grave look on her face. He exhaled heavily before looking around. "You just woke up though." His voice was quiet, and she softened her expression.

"I'm fine," she told him. "Just a bit tired but that's all."

Alex looked up and gazed at her for a long time. "It started with Penn Station," he said.

Penn Station… she had followed leads where The Outbreak began, and Penn Station was dominantly the name associated with that. Annoyingly enough, she couldn't get the security footage, none at all as it was erased. What copies were there were fuzzy from the corruption of data and showed footage during the wrong time and days.

"Go on," she encouraged him.

"Gentek," he began. "Was working on a secret project for Blackwatch. The cover of the story was that they were researching the cure for cancer," he told her with disgust in his voice. "It was a lie. They were working on weaponizing a virus."

"Biological warfare..." she whispered. "That's–" She blinked rapidly. She was not surprised at the insanity mankind could get up to, but… "The government allowed this?" The U.S. would risk this on their soil, on Manhattan as well?

"It's a blurry line," Alex told her gravely. "Blackwatch can make the current government's face look like puppets. They're behind all of this, mostly, but they're following some New World higher-ups. They wanted a weapon, a virus that aims at certain ethnicities. If not, the other is a means that could improve… human's aptitude. Make them stronger, faster, smarter," he told her.

"Like steroids… just better," she said drily. He nodded. "So they're engineering a virus that could make super soldiers." He nodded again.

"This Blackwatch," Dana began, recalling the black gasmask strangling her and holding a gun to her head, and their highly nonexistent presence in any record. She dug up Gentek's sins, but whatever involvements Blackwatch had were never fully mentioned anywhere or were highly censored to the point it made the document looked like barcodes. She only found their symbol, the winged star by chance. Even then she needed to hear their name from the military net. "They were the black ops military nuts that attacked my apartment and hunting you."

He nodded grimly before he added, "They deal with biological warfare."

Okay, shady military government, secret and illegal projects, and the virus the focus of it all, and she guessed it was that same virus that made those zombies infesting the streets of Manhattan. She'd never seen it in person, but the footage she'd found during her research was undeniable, and that…that monster. She closed her eyes, breathing in deeply, remembering that ugly creature that broke the wall, its claws snatching onto her.

It was just… crazy. Something heard from conspiracist's mouth and those who believe the world had been visited by aliens. But she was a journalist, and occasionally those types of stories did get a headline of their own, whether to believe in it or not was up to the readers. But fucking hell, the government let this type of research going on? How many were there?

"Tell me more on the virus," she said, realizing he went silent again.

"It's called Redlight." He grimaced. "It was the virus that was infecting Manhattan," Alex told her quietly and he suddenly began to pace, restless, fidgeting unlike the still stony man she knew from the past. "What it can do…" he began again then stopped in his pacing. "It's a churning machine, Dana. It produces strains, mutating as it replicates and grows. Any vaccine against it would be useless, as it would just mutate into another strain entirely. It had the possibility to produce one strain that would give them what they want."

"A super virus," she murmured. She had read enough medical article during high school. She was curious, after all, what made biology so interesting for Alex.

"Yeah," Alex said quietly. So soft-spoken. Never knew he would mellow. It was different from the last time when he demanded, his tone hard even when they reunited for the first time after five years of no communication between them. Hadn't changed that cold exterior of his. But now… she gazed at him softly. He was so different, more… open.

"How did they manage to build a cure then?" Dana frowned. "I was infected with this virus, right?" She looked at him and images flashed. Voice, a face… red, and the snarl of something furious, hunting and killing them.

She flinched at the sudden stab of a headache, her eyes quickly shut as vivid recollection stirred within her.

Alex nodded again, letting action speak louder and he turned, finally facing fully towards her. "You–"

"I was taken, infected," she said quietly. She recalled the empty expression on the red-haired woman gazing back with those dead green eyes and her whispers. The reason… the wailings, the crying… the pain, so much pain, why does it cry so much? She sucked in her breath and shook herself from her thoughts. "That girl, Elizabeth Greene, what is she?"

The Reason… for Everything.

She squeezed her eyes shut, exhaling her breath in a shudder when the whispers swarmed up from nowhere.

Alex looked at the sudden pained expression on her face with alarm. "Dana, are you okay?" he asked.

"Tell me, Alex. What is she?" Dana whispered, then sucked in her breath again, her hands clenching and unclenching. The hospital room felt so cold, so vast yet small, and suddenly she just wanted her brother's hand holding hers like when he did after she woke up.

"Elizabeth Greene. She was a test subject, from a project named Carnival II. The only remnant after Blackwatch experiment and nuked Hope, Idaho," Alex continued cautiously, watching her. "Unlike any… infected," he grimaced when he said that. "She was special. The virus manifested in her and she continued to live, was still able to think despite what it was doing in her. She can even control those who are infected and the virus itself. She's what Blackwatch would call a Runner."

"So what is she?" Dana asked, her voice quiet, still not understanding the nature of these Runners.

"Runners exist to spread the virus," Alex told her grimly. "In fact, she succeeded at doing that. She had infected most of Manhattan."

"So she started The Outbreak." Dana looked at her brother then noticed the hesitation.

"They were two outbreaks," he told her. "There was Redlight, and it wasn't meant to be unleashed, it escaped." He grimaced, recalling how Elizabeth Greene knocked him back when they first met.

It wasn't because how strong her hit was, it was the painful mental lash as well when his body made contact with her hand. Tendrils that were there to form into whatever he wished felt stiff during that time, and when she spoke a very vast presence pressed down heavily on his mind. Elizabeth Greene was no human test subject after that. She had become something else in his eyes, and he had let her slip away from his very hands.

He breathed in before continuing as his eyes narrowed, "The other… Gentek current project were to… improve Redlight in what it can do, and that was basically rewriting the whole DNA. They just wanted to make it give more...controlled result." His face turned into disgust. "They succeeded, they made a super virus that's ten times dangerous than its… mother."

"So they're a bunch of mad scientists," she said drily. "Unethical, immoral psychopathic bastards."

Alex grimaced, then she remembered he was a Gentek scientist as well. "Alex, did you work on this?" Dana whispered, dreading the answer.

How deep was he with Gentek?

He looked away. "Alexander J. Mercer lead the project, yes," he told her quietly. Dana searched his face, his guilt-written face. Why was he talking like that? "And he knew the true nature of the virus and the purpose it was meant for." A weapon.

It would explain so much of how he could get those confidential files of Elizabeth Greene and the BLACKLIGHT project. He was the head researcher there, a job she could imagine Alex would accept no less considering he was smart enough and took pride how much hard work he went through to get to where he was.

Hundreds, thousands, millions could die from her brother's work. They had died.

Her heart sank.

Dana breathed in heavily and shut her eyes. "H-how…" she began. How could he…

How long did he know? When did he discover he was working on something fuck up? Was this why he looked guilty, was this why he went against Gentek in the first place?

If he had known earlier, he would have still done the same as he did now and stopped working for Gentek, she assured herself.

He was going to make it right. Alex was going to be the whistleblower, he was the one who wanted to dig up and spilled Gentek's secrets, wanted to prove them they were in the wrong and a bunch of bastards. Who didn't know what was going on just as much as she was. That was why he came to her in the first place! To get him information and proof of the fuck up thing Gentek was up to.

"The deadlier virus was called Blacklight, an offshoot of DX-1118, specifically Elizabeth Greene's," Alex continued grimly, ignoring the accusing look she was giving. "And the thing is it's a prototype." He hesitated. "It kills, and when it doesn't, something else comes out," he told her.

"Penn Station," he continued numbly, and it came pouring out, "That was the first time it was released. It was undiluted, pure Blacklight. It killed everything within minutes, nothing came out; no infected, no survivors. What it infects; it copies, combine, mutates so much that there's nothing left of what came before–"

"Who released it?" Dana asked quietly.

Her brother was still, his lips sealed in a thin line with his jaws shut tight.

"Alex!" she demanded. "Who released it?" she asked angrily, her voice sharp, her breath deepening and turning rapid.

"Alex… Mercer," he answered.

What? She sat back and blinked rapidly, her eyes wide and uncomprehending. That didn't make sense. That didn't make any sense!

He was here, he was alive! He was standing before her. How could he be alive if he was the one… the one who released the virus. By right, he should be dead just like every other person in Penn Station. How was he even alive?! How is that possible?

My son. Green eyes, a voice – no, voices murmured so fondly.

It copies… combine, mutates so much… No.

"I don't understand." Her voice shook when she whispered this.

He was infected, the Monster of Manhattan, her face paled when she remembered. Different from the nightmares that walked the streets. She had finally looked into it deeply after Alex spilled at her about Hope and hearing voices. That persistent bogeyman of the Outbreak, the reason behind her brother's anger, the reason he believed he had been wronged by some kind of fucked-up experiment. Her brother, who she had known for so long as fearless and strong in the face of everything life had thrown at him, looked like shit, was hearing stuff, and saying things that didn't make sense, unraveling in front of her.

He needed fucking help. At the time, a part of her hoped that Ragland could… maybe cure him from whatever it was making him sound crazy at least. It wasn't the right reaction, to be honest. She had turned him away, pushed him to some stranger instead of being there for him when he needed her the most.

Now, that person was still here, one and the same, standing in front of her right now, explaining, setting things right.

This was the opposite of right. No, this couldn't be right. This wasn't true.

"How do you know this for sure?" she demanded desperately when he remained quiet.

Dana turned to stare at him and something in her broke at what she saw. The guilt in his face was undeniable. It was infuriating in a way, the Alex she remembered would never allow or admit a show of emotion like that. Her hands were now clenching tightly on the blanket out of anger.

All the terrorist comments, all the fingers pointing him as the killer that triggered the Outbreak…

Her visions wavered as her eyes welled up. She had defended him, had believed in him!

After a long stare, he turned his gaze downward and softly admitted to her, "I'm not… him."

"What do you mean?" she snapped.

"I'm not… Alex Mercer." He grated this out again with a deeper frown between his brows.

"Why are you referring yourself like that?!" she yelled at him and searched again at the hurt expression on his face. "Are you trying to escape your role in making thousand dead, is this what you are saying to me right now?!"

Alex flinched.

People had died, she could have died, and he was trying to deny the issue here, trying to run away from what he had done. She shut her eyes, eyebrows furrowing as she quickly covered her face. She couldn't believe it, she couldn't believe what she was hearing. A coward. That was… Alex was never a coward. A runner, but not a coward, and here he was. Disgusted, she shook her head.

A morbid thought came to her. He was amnesiac, he wouldn't even remember his last damned action on this world. She wanted to laugh… and cry at that. Alex getting fucked over by his own actions.

All this time, the one who had wronged him, had turned him into a… a monster was him. Those people he had said he stopped and killed, what did their deaths mean now? His anger over those who were behind all of this, what did that mean now? Weren't they the one who made him this way?!

Dana clutched her head in frustration as she exhaled.

He damned himself in that station with everyone else with him but didn't expect the virus fucking-up his body with his memories in a half-assed state. Leaving him to face the consequences of his actions in this state – and he clearly didn't want to face his actions, not if it meant questioning himself more for what he had done to right the wrongs.

"Alexander J. Mercer worked on the virus, Blacklight," he continued numbly, avoiding her gaze. "He noticed scientists working on the project were one by one going missing. Considering the nature of Redlight, he knew what he worked on was shady as fuck," Alex told her quietly.

"Wh–" She glared.

"So he made plans while trying to find out what was going on," he cut her off quickly, his face grim and resolute, his voice hardening, growing determined. "And took a vial of Blacklight as an incentive. It was his pride and joy, his masterpiece." The words escaped with a snarl, then he grimaced when he saw her lost look.

She laid there and stared at him long and hard, her knuckles white as her shaking hands gripped so tightly.

There was nothing to do now but to finish it. "Penn Station, he went there with the virus, but he was cornered by Blackwatch, and he was shot dead," Alex rasped as he gazed at her pale expression, his voice so… small.

Dead, shot dead, but… she stared at him. He was standing here, in front of her. Alive, not dead.

"The vial broke. And he fell on it."

My son…

"Three days later, I woke up in a morgue," Alex said hoarsely, his voice surprisingly weak.

Dead, dead for three days. He stopped calling her entirely for about a week before the Outbreak went down, a period of days he went AWOL. His last call was sudden and curt, within the 24 hours before Penn Station became a headline on the news, Dana recalled. He had told her to leave, a shit-poor warning of what was to come after. As he had said, he didn't care what people think of him considering what happened next. He died but, in his stead…

Copies, combines… mutates so much that…

Something else comes out, she remembered. No survivors, no infecteds. Something else comes out…

She winced, recalling the images of a man taking a grenade in the face. Flesh and clothes unscathed, immaculate as the debris settled around him. Something inhuman, surviving the impossible, a monster – the monster that had cut through men and infecteds. That hunted them, hunted us, and ripped through them ruthlessly, cold-bloodedly, with tendrils parting from his body as he reeled victims in and stepped into their place, weaving back into the familiar glaring gaze of her brother.

A thing that became her brother.

"The people I've killed, they're in me. I can hear them – see the things they've done… I can understand it all. I'm supposed to do these things… it's right. I can feel it."

That same being had reached out to her and tried to brush her cheeks with those hands that could turn into claws. That apologized to her.

My son… My son…

It wasn't so hard to believe that when she remembered how the whispers saw him as.

I'm not… him.

She shut her eyes and a hot tear slipped down her cheek. A… thing. He was a thing. Like… an infected. Except it was using her brother's body. A… virus wearing his face.

But… but he was talking, he was looking at her concernedly. Infected were those ugly things in the streets with tumors growing on their faces, would rather eat and kill anything in front of them. If not like those monsters, like… the one that took her… She shuddered. He was neither of them.

Right?

My son… The Monster of Manhattan. She shook.

A… Runner then? But he wasn't spreading the virus. He was that… clueless amnesiac brot–man…person, being who came to her, who punched a guy who threatened her right through. Who didn't know what was going on as much as she did.

Who killed...

Then there was her brother. He caused thousands to die. He willingly carried the virus despite… his situation holding him at a gunpoint. Incentive. Planning to sell, planning to blackmail, willingly risked the idea of releasing a vial containing the deadliest virus known to mankind into the world.

Even if he succeeded to escape, even when he had warned her ahead, he would still be willing to cause thousands, millions to die. He should have tried to end it, destroy it, but instead, he released it, even willingly had worked on it. There was no denying, she knew her brother was smart enough to figure out the nature of the virus considering he was the one who gave the files of Elizabeth Greene.

Did he die, and then it fell from his hand and broke? Or did he die as he threw it and broke?

Alex… Alex… challenging the world, not believing in anyone, not trusting anyone, no faith in anything, always pushing people all to the side. Somehow what he had done was not so surprising when knowing the man that was her brother. She thought he had changed.

He used me. Her chest shook. She thought when he came back, that her being the only person he could trust as he'd told her before the mess started, showed that he cared about her at least. Trust was a big thing for Mercer, for Alex. But he carried a fucking deadly virus and released on the same ground she was on. That was her brother that did it.

The one who saved her when the mess caught up to her… the whole time… it wasn't him. It wasn't even him. He saved her, he was concerned about her, that he cared about her, but it was not even him.

And him, this… thing. She frowned, upset and confused. What… he, he wore her brother's face. Her head felt like cracking under a burning pressure. She remembered the sadness, the pain, the amusement of the voices, her voice. My son… That was how Greene viewed him as. She curled up and sank back down onto the bed.

"I…" he-it-he began. "I… didn't know I was not him," he told her gently.

She looked at him as silent tears fell. "You used me as well," she whispered. Her brother's betrayal… its… they were blurring.

"No!"

"Please," she said hoarsely. "Just… get out."

Alex stared before a saddened look settled on his face. "For what it's worth," he said quietly. "I still think of you as my sister even after… everything."

She blinked and looked up only to stare at an empty room.

---

No matter what, you're still my brother.

What empty words they've become.

The pale morning came. People asked her questions. She didn't respond. Food was placed on her table. She gave it two or three bites before she quit. Sun went up. People came again, their words went past her, someone told them to leave. Food came again. She didn't touch. Evening greeted her eyes when she stared out the window from her hospital bed, the air crisp and cool against her pale white skin.

She laid there and did nothing, just watching. A day went by with her body gnawing her, her head thumping uncomfortably. Her eyes threatened to well up again when she felt the wet warmth of her tears almost slip from the rims of her eyes. She burrowed her head into her pillow instead, forcing them shut. She didn't feel tired, she didn't feel like moving, she didn't feel like thinking.

In some way, she had shut herself in her own world.

The next morning and afternoon meal went by like this. The staff buzzed with words of a stubborn patient and wondering where her close relatives were, mutters of irresponsible family and rumors of dead loved ones passed through mouths in the realization that she was one of the invaluable patients from Manhattan that had lost her livelihood and whatever friends and families she had in the devastation. Dana Mercer was something like out of a war zone for them, a walking miracle that had returned from what should have been a point of no return.

"You need to eat," Ragland said gently to her. "At this rate, the hospital is going to intervene."

The nurse that came to her every mealtime failed horribly in their efforts to establish a routine and a familiar environment. They had tried to reach out to her, reading the newspaper aloud and turning on the TV to watch the news or some show together, engaging in small talks and conversation, but they might as well be speaking to a wall.

All efforts just seemed to glance off Dana Mercer. Nothing and no one could broach her wall.

A healthy human couldn't keep this up forever, what mental wall put up would slowly be chip away at another's persistent effort. They would crawl out of their own hole eventually as their brain demanded them to move, to speak, to listen… to communicate their needs. But her body had gone through changes, changes that could arguably put this to a test.

Her placid and dead look was disconcerting, a young face similar to the nineteen-year-old girl he once remembered, that had only stared emptily back and sat waiting for the next injection, the next examination, the next experiment while remaining eerily unmoving at everything.

The TV in the back continued its tirade on the Manhattan's Outbreak.

"Fuck off," he heard her small voice rasp as she remained curled up in her bed.

Ragland sighed. She was supposed to be in rehab, they had planned to move her out the intensive care ward but that had changed at this sudden development. In the usual case, it was the elderlies and those dealing with a life-changing impairment who were the ones often being difficult and refusing to eat – people with stubborn temperament, not young college girls in their early twenties who were just recovering from a five-months-long coma. Even then, they usually have their families and friends revolving around their life to help them and get them back up to speed.

But she?

She had no one. Her only brother was a terrorist, and what came in his place was a monster and a killer. Any friendly acquaintance of hers would and should rather rid any association with the Mercer name. The only life she had was destroyed when her brother decided to drag her into a world of being hunted down by the men in black. Her future gone in the wake of the Outbreak.

No family. No friends. No life to go back to. No future laid ahead for Dana Mercer.

A daunting recovery and a life of running waiting to be rebuilt from the ground up, alone amongst strangers than loved ones – it was hard to get better when there was nothing left for her to pick up. From what he had learned from his hospital colleagues, sometimes, they were not enough for their patients and make for poor substitutes to what they needed.

He was absolutely clueless at how to coax the girl to eat.

"Dr. Ragland," a cheerful nurse greeted by the door. "Good evening, Miss Hale," she said when she walked in with the white-uniformed foodservice worker just outside, carrying a trolley of meals resting on their trays.

He only stood there and watched them set up her dinner on the patient's moving table. Dana refused to even acknowledge their presence as they did. The nurse sat down on a chair, scooting closer to the side of the bed Dana leaned towards to.

She grabbed one of the soft food, a bowl of porridge with its spoon. "Jenning," she called out to Dana.

She didn't respond, and he heard a soft exasperated sigh before the chair was scooted closer. At this, Ragland slowly made his way out of the room with the recent report in his hand.

"Go away," he heard Dana snap followed by the sound of plastic cutlery clattering on the floor.

"Miss Hale." The nurse raised her voice, more crossed than annoyed now. "You're not making your recovery easy for you."

"If you want me out, fine!" Dana snapped hotly. "I'll let myself out!" she said with a loud swept of the blanket being pulled off.

"I'm afraid I cannot allow you to do that," said the nurse quickly. "You cannot just walk out of here with the state of your muscle."

"Watch me," Dana retorted.

"Miss!" The nurse called out to her when she brushed past him. Ragland quickly took a step back when the older woman in her scrubs rushed right after. "Miss Hale at least let us formally discharge you before you go!" she called out as she walked alongside her in the hallway. "I understand the grievance you're going through-"

"NO, YOU FUCKING DON'T!" Dana stopped and screamed at the nurse's face. "You don't fucking know anything!" she yelled at her as the tears began to heavily flow down her face.

The whole ward seemed to go silent as all eyes and ears turned towards them. The sound of paper rustled, and phone calls rang loudly as with the shuddering cries of a young woman with only the sheets of her hospital gown on her back, finally breaking down in front of others.

Dana Mercer blinked her red eyes rapidly and quickly tried to wipe the tears away with her palm and wrist, aware suddenly the bareness of her legs and arms when she felt the hot tears against her cold skin.

"Jenning," the nurse said softly and reached out to her.

She immediately swept away her hands. "Don't touch me!" Dana hissed.

The sound of heavy footsteps approached them, a tall man in the dark garb of security uniform stood in her way. Perhaps an authoritative presence would be different in persuading the patient. "Miss," he called out to her and stepped forward.

"I said!" Dana glared when she saw his hands reached out towards her. "Don't. Touch. ME!"

It was sudden and quick, a blink in the eye, the loud bang and clattering crack of the hole in the wall thundering throughout the ward. It was only the startling cry of the nurse as she covered her mouth in horror that reminded reality what just happened in front of them.

"Jesus Christ," someone whispered.

Dana was pale, her shoulders raised and stiff, her tears-ridden eyes wide with shock as her feet took a few steps back at the scene of her crime. Her hands were up and stuck in their incriminating position before she slowly curled them and brought her arms down closer to her body. The blood already pooling fast on the floor amongst the shattered remains of a window that was caught in the crash. The security guard laid still, eyes glazed and expressionless amongst the debris.

He was dead.

"Someone, get the ER team here, now!"

The world sped up around her, sounds of footsteps rushing with the colors of blue, green and white of doctors and nurses appearing. They surrounded the body on the floor, nonchalantly stepping over the hole in the wall. Their voices calm but demanding, she hardly hear them when she fell on deaf ears, the blood in her veins roaring so loudly, she could feel the shuddering of her exhale in her head. She shook her head and turned away towards the hallway ahead, searching for something, for someone, for help, for her escape.

There wasn't anyone waiting for her anymore. A strange sense of emptiness filled in; cut off, isolated – a feeling that didn't sit well in her, something not right. Who were these people? Who were they? Why are they here? Why was she here? Where was she? Why wasn't she at home? Where was home? Where was home? Her feet moved with a mind of its own, taking a step back, staggering and stumbling in a drunken state.

Home. She wanted to go home, but she didn't have a home anymore, she couldn't hear it anymore. Something was missing. She was sure there was supposed to be someone… something calling her. What was it? What was it? Where was it?

Can someone help her? She turned and reached out for a person, her hand trying to grasp a shoulder of a nurse. Something burning warm snatched her hand before she could, her body ended up pressing against him instead. Her head snapped and turned, she was met with familiar green eyes that gazed back down on hers.

Green eyes. A part of her remembered those green eyes. Those were her eyes.

"I need you to breathe in," he said so softly that she could hardly hear him over the sounds of a gurney and onrushing chaos around them.

Yet she did hear him, his voice loud and crystal clear, words cutting through the fog that threatened to burst out of her head, unaware her shaking hands had been gripped fiercely by his as he pulled her out of the way.

"Can you do that for me? Breathe in… slowly."

Her jittery breath slowed down. Her chest tightened when she inhaled deeply. Her heart hammered against the cage of her ribs. She was suddenly aware of the warm hands holding hers, his grip had become lax but hers were tight and piercing, nails digging deeply into his flesh to the point he was starting to bleed.

The skin of his hand cracked, veins beneath his pale white skin flushed pink for the eyes to see. The color stretched out down his fingers and disappeared up beneath his sleeve, revealing more as it grew in him and up his arm, into his shoulder. Blood vessels contracting and expanding in a rush with sudden frenzy, a sensation she could feel mirroring in her arm, in his. A burning warmth that seemed to spread from the very nails digging tightly into him. She grew calm in her watching.

A part of her wonder if it was painful at all for him.

Droplet of bloods had slipped from where her nails pierced. A tiny red blotch that slowly grew and slid across the floor, sprouting into a crawl.

He quickly shifted his foot over it.

"Sir, I need you step away from her."

"It's fine, I came here for her."

"She had just assaulted-"

When he spoke, she could see the red vapor spilling from his lips, a soft gentle whispering that she alone could hear – she half-expected to hear him humming a comforting song. The hallway was warm and safe with him in it, filled with the familiar pulsating growth of home that spread from beneath his feet. It felt like a distant dream, why was she at the hospital in the first place?

An overwhelming sense to sit down came to her.

"Stop it," he said with mild annoyance when he turned his gaze back onto her. "Focus." He shook her briefly before his expression softened.

A certain scent of home wafted from him, someone began to cough violently.

Her head felt like spilling, unraveling and pooling down to the floor. She was unraveling. Someone managed to catch her by the waist and set her down on something. The floor jerked and moved under her own legs, she was suddenly being wheeled away in a chair with him walking alongside her calmly.

She was back in her empty pale room, her dinner cold and still there. She didn't want to be back here. She wanted to go home. Alarmed, she searched frantically for the familiar presence but went still when she noticed his quiet presence beneath the doorway. His green eyes revealing nothing before he left and shut the door behind him.

Left alone, she waited expectedly for him to come back. She waited for so long her eyes slowly slid shut, a heavy weight she couldn't shake off sank deeply on her mind. She woke up to a pillow resting against her right cheek, she was back in her bed, staring out the window and into the empty cloudy night of Minnesota's sky.

Dana sat up straight, quickly scrambling her white covers off her body. Her eyes landed on the overbed tray table, no dinner sat there but instead a bottle of water and a white clear plastic cup sat neatly on top of it. The room seemed similar yet different, not exactly how she remembered.

"You caused a lot of trouble, you know," a man spoke.

She spun around, quick to turn her back away from him. In place of the thing that had sat in Alex's chair was a man in his late thirties. Dressed in a black turtleneck, he wore a cream-colored raincoat. It was the same man not-Alex had bickered.

"How are you?" he asked.

"Who are you?" she demanded back, her voice was hoarse and came out in a low rasp.

His shoulders slouched when he leaned forward. He idly noted the straight black scratch mark on the floor that trailed off from the legs of his chair before he gave a half-lidded exasperated stare. "You've met my mother before." He smiled.

Green eyes, she could never forget those green eyes. It was so ingrained, always there, always watching, somewhat feline in a way, but that feeling was gone now. It left a hole in her. He shared those green eyes, her nose, and chin if she squinted. Dana stared and recalled the young woman that looked more near her age, who could have easily been in college like her. Then she compared it to this late-thirties dark blonde man.

He looked older than his mother. He looked nothing like his mother.

"Elizabeth Greene," she whispered. "Bullshit, you look too old." Her eyes narrowed.

The older man smiled. "Zeus is barely one-year-old, and he looks like he's in his thirty," he said drily. "Age, appearance means nothing to us."

ZEUS… that was his name, the name Blackwatch had given to him. Appropriate since the mythological god was a dickbag that shapeshifted and tricked women to get their trust then wormed briefly into their life just to use them.

"You're saying you're something like him," she said coldly.

"In a way," he admitted nonchalantly with an easy smile on his face. "Have you heard of Hope, Idaho?"

"Yeah, the town those shady military fucknuts were experimenting and wiped off the face of the map," Dana said dryly.

He nodded. "Hope was a cross-section, they wanted to gather what the virus would do to human beings. During their experiment in Hope, Idaho, an outbreak similar to what happened to Manhattan occurred," he told her and leaned back in his seat with a distant look on his face. "My mother became pregnant sometime during that mess. In a way, their experiment resulted me."

"You're telling me people were still wanting to bang in the middle of a zombie outbreak?" she said sarcastically.

"Well, when you put it that way…" He gave an awkward smile. "It's made worse when you realize my mother was the reason behind the mess that resulted half the population to die in the first month, and the rest infected," he added. "Yet she still somehow managed to get some."

"What the fuck. She was behind Hope?" Dana muttered and shot a look at him. "W-w-wait, that doesn't make sense." She frowned in recollection. "I remembered a photo of your mother, Hope's women club 19…"

"1969," he said for her.

Lucky guess. "The lighting on the picture was crap, but… looking back, she did look visibly pregnant," she said. "In her second to third trimester maybe."

How old would that baby be if it had been born? Dana squinted at the smiling man.

It was kind of an obvious detail now that she thought about it, but at the time there were other pressing matters, she grimaced. Like dealing with the fact her brother-but-not-really-brother was a goddamn mess, seeing things and hearing voices from the people in him - the people he killed apparently. She wanted to think it was the rambling of a man losing it from whatever awful things that had happened to him. That would have been preferable, but the image of the Monster of Manhattan would not allow her that comfort.

In some twisted way, her own brother's body was its first. A lump grew in her throat. But that meant Alex was in there somewhere, right? Another voice, another… memory in his head lost amidst of many others. Something he could see, something he could hear and remember – something broken and missing, she reminded herself. Something used for depraved and senseless reasonings.

But it's right. I can feel it.

"Do you still have it?" he asked.

Dana turned and looked at him.

"The photo I mean." He brightened with expectation.

"No, not anymore." She exhaled and shook her head. "It was… it was in my brother's laptop." She doubted she even have any of her clothes with her, Dana thought ruefully when she looked down at her hospital gown.

"Everyone seemed fine in the picture," she told him. "Didn't look like they were dying or suffering from some infection. If Hope went as bad as you make it out to be, then your mother had already turned the town over and was practically knitting and taking pics with her friends while a zombie outbreak is happening next door," she said drily.

Elizabeth Greene sure as hell didn't seem to exude a terrifying present in that image. She looked very much like a nineteen-year-old girl who was hanging out with her friends. Hard to believe that pregnant girl in the picture was already a terrifying infected at the time.

He smiled in amusement at that. "I think I remember that photo. I've never thought of looking at it that way." He suddenly laughed softly to himself, grinning fondly. "It would actually be nice to see that picture again."

She did have to admit, it was kind of a funny thing to think about. Dana smiled briefly.

"I thought-" Dana stopped and frowned. "I thought Hope was just an experiment backfiring on those crazy military nuts. Y'know, suddenly dead people." She shrugged. "With your mom just happened to be the only survivor they decided to keep experimenting on."

And make a monster out of her.

A hole in the wall. Dead glazed eyes with blood amongst debris and glass shards. She tried reaching out to someone's shoulder. Someone had stopped her. Someone had grabbed her hands so tightly that it hurt.

Drops of blood on the floor crawling. Veins flushed pink for the eyes to see. A hand bleeding.

Green eyes looking right back at her.

Dana blinked, she stared at her lap, her pale hands resting on top of her legs. The nails had been trimmed recently, and the skin a little bit dry. She stretched and spread her fingers then curled them to make fists, the white knuckles showing.

Everything seemed fine.

The state of her wrists and the crook of her elbows could be better. She could see the blue veins bruised red from the multiple injections and samples taken from her. From a glance at her legs, the veins at her feet told the same dotted tale, and she could feel the brush and pinch of multiple stiches in her skin beneath the paper-thin cover of her gown.

"You're not wrong, suddenly dead people did happen." She heard him chuckle, and Dana turned towards him. "As for the lack of zombies… despite the deaths, humans are generally asymptomatic when it comes to the infection - even if you count in my mother's strains," he said. "It wasn't originally designed to be a killing virus after all. In fact, before the human testing phase, they had experimented on animals," he explained.

"I'm more inclined to believe they were testing for ethnic cleansing considering what had happened," she said drily. "And let me guess, they were convinced by those results they got from the animals that they thought it was a good enough reason to ignore ethics and human's rights?"

He nodded with a smile. "Enhanced strength and boosted intelligence - they thought they had their super serum. But the virus changed beyond their control at Hope," he told her grimly. "It changed my mother when it got to her. In fact, I would argue its aim isn't death, but to keep its host alive as much as possible in the process of transforming it. But whether that is what the virus was supposed to do, I'll leave that matter up to perspectives."

Dana shook her head. "I hardly believe that. Not after what she did to Manhattan." Not after so many had died, twisted to become those things that was out of sci-fi horror. He wasn't wrong in that regard, people transformed into monsters capable of crushing cars and breaking through walls – death would be release, death would be the better outcome in this case.

It would have been simple if the virus was a glorified chem-bomb than this menacing disease that could think and made nightmares real.

Was a dead brother the better alternative then?

Except he was dead. Dana glowered.

Dead. Gone. Even worse, a selfish fuckhead that was willing to have millions die in his stead.

"There is another explanation," he said this softly.

She glanced at him in reply.

"My mother was happy with the way things were," he said. "Content to spread through human carriers only as there was no reason to fight, no reason to make creatures out of others. She was surrounded by those she loved – and not in her own warped sense," he added with amusement. "Whatever he had said about Runners spreading the virus, he wasn't wrong," he told her. "But not completely right."

"Runners exist to make family; the bigger, the better."

"Did a voice in your head told you all of this?" Dana asked wryly.

He actually laughed loudly at that. It was a soft raspy laugh, a shaky exhale that escaped from his grinning lips. "No, but I guess being their lab rat for thirties years since my birth would give more reasons behind my crazy explanation," he answered her.

She turned towards him with a raised eyebrow. "And they let you walk out of there with all of this information, how?" she said with a half-lidded stare. "You're sure you're not their sleeper agent of some sort?"

He shook his head with that gentle smile on his face dropping to a cold empty gaze. "No. I'm not one of them."

For a moment there the room was scarred with the familiar flesh of pulsating veins and growth, the air thick of a scent she recalled with emptiness that crushed her heart instead of filling her with dread. Yesterday evening came back to her in a crash.

"How are you doing this?" Her voice was small and quiet when she asked.

"I told you, I am my mother's son," he said.

She heard her voice echoing in place of his. Soft and somber, gentle and repeating, a layer that stirred something inside her.

"So you're like her?" She raised her voice. "What do you want from me?" She glared as she demanded.

He had placed his hands together and cocked his head awkwardly. "I was being serious when I asked how are you?"

Another person who had no reason and no business to be concern with her. Made worst when it was a fucking stranger she didn't even know. Why was it so hard for Alex? Why couldn't he do that for her?

Dana was quick to look away when the familiar warmth began to well up in her eyes and face. She stopped herself from crossing her arms and covering them, grimacing internally the bareness of her hospital gown.

She wanted to say she felt like shit, but all she could come up with was the emptiness that weighed heavily in her. The tension on her shoulder and back gone, the pressure in her head lifted. Not exhilaration, but close to resignation.

"I feel fine," she answered him stiffly.

He said nothing at that.

"Yesterday," she spoke up. "What happened?"

"What do you remember?" he asked.

Dana paused in her frowning. "I had an argument with a nurse," she said as she slowly recalled. "I wanted to get out of here. I pushed someone and… and it happened. I… I killed someone."

"You almost did," he corrected her. "He's alive with a broken back and a cracked chest. Turns out some O2 tank got ruptured."

"What?" She turned towards him sharply. "There's no way they would believe that. There's the cameras in the hallway… a-and the cops would need to find some trace of the tank."

"The cameras in the hallway? They haven't been running properly for almost a week now. You're lucky I came in prepared." He leaned his cheek on his hand. "I had to do the old switcheroo with you and another girl, easier on the memory since you've left quite a lasting impression," he said softly. "Pity what had happened to her."

Dana blinked at this rapidly before she quickly rushed to the end of her bed and pulled up her bed chart. Her name wasn't Jenning Hale, it was someone else, recovering from some sort of cancer treatment. "What did you do?" she said, her eyes wide when she looked at him.

"I am my mother's son," he repeated grimly. "She infects and change them. I infect and control."

"If what you're saying is true, someone still had to die for my mistake," Dana said softly as she paled. "It doesn't change anything."

"Don't worry on that, you weren't the only infected Jan Doe they were treating," he reassured her. "Though unlike you, there was no hope for her. If it makes you feel better, she was already braindead from the virus, and if my mother had been around," he continued nonchalantly.

"She would have been just another walker."

"This is… this is crazy." She shook her head and backed away from him. "You're saying you infected the whole ward, mind control everyone, and implanted a false memory!" She was shouting now.

"Well it's more like I tell them what happened, and a part of their brain fills up the blank and make excuse. I just need to do some tweaking to match up some details," he answered but started to slowly shrink in his chair under her accusing glare. "You'd be surprised what the left brain makes up. One of the reason neuroscientist question if there's such thing as free will," he added weakly.

"What do you want from me?" Dana demanded again. "Why are you here?" She stood on the other side of her bed, keeping the furniture between him and her.

"You have been in coma for five months, did you know?" He pointed at her. "Yet you walk freely without therapy, you don't struggle with your food or your speech, your motor skill just fine. In fact… your doctors did note your muscles weren't suffering from the usual rate of atrophy unlike any other patients."

"So?" She glared.

"My mother chose you," he told her grimly. "She does not choose who are her daughters, who are made into a Runner and who doesn't. All the other Runners in history were… incidental, you could say. Women who somehow caught the virus due to a series of unfortunate circumstances. Even Zeus and I are not exempt to this, we were both a fluke. But for you–" He stared at her. "–she left something in you personally. She had never done something like that before."

"What are you saying?" Dana whispered.

"You would have been a lost cause," he said. "Zeus… he was prudent enough to take you out of Manhattan. If you had stayed there, the infected would have come for you just to take their queen bee back."

"So you're saying I'm something like your mother, that I'm going to become a… a Runner?" Her breath was rapid, and she began to pace around the room, bare feet slapping the cold pale floor.

"No. No, thankfully." He shook his head and gave a thin smile. "Zeus sought a solution to stop the infection in you. He used a cure version of his virus. If this was a typical strain of Redlight, he would have made the right choice."

"But I didn't have something like that?" She looked to him for confirmation.

"Like I said, my mother does not choose until you," he said.

"H-how I was cured then? Did he at least stop the infection?" she asked frantically.

"That." He gave a very dry laugh. "There's a fun story behind that. Short version, he came into my life, flip it upside down, wreck my office, tried to kill me, and asked me to cure you… in all but words, of course," he added with a roll of his eyes. "He didn't directly ask for help, you know. I just offered it to him."

Dana stood still and looked at him. "You stopped the infection?"

"With a metaphorical gun pointing the back of my head, yes." He grinned.

She wanted to snort at the image of her hooded brother standing behind the man and pointing at her with a concerned but angry face that said: cure her. Alex worried. Alex angry at her situation. Alex demanding someone to get her better like an irrational person. Except it wasn't her brother, he wasn't Alex. Alex wasn't concerned about her, only gave a single shit for himself, and would rather left her behind in Manhattan with all the mess.

While he didn't. He came back again, and again, when the brother she knew would've left, had left.

"Your case was not simple. Control means nothing if the virus in you is incapable of undoing any damage," he told her. "And you had went through a lot. I simply stopped its progression and rid of the troublesome strains before it really got to you here–" He tapped his head. "–using Blacklight."

"A virus ten times dangerous than your mother's." She gave a pointed look.

To think something good came out of her brother's shady work.

"Only to rid the infection." He smiled in reply. "But I had to use one strain to make your body recover – something of your own. Even then, the changes are still in you. Changes that you have to bear for now," he said, lowering his eyes briefly.

A hole in the wall and almost dead guy in critical care with her still carrying the virus. She stepped back and stumbled onto the cold wall behind her, leaning heavily onto it.

"Is this… is this how bad it's going to be?" she asked him.

"I can promise you this will only be the worst of it," he said carefully. "And I can keep it that way. I could… I could cure you with my virus if you want?" He offered.

Trust someone she barely knew after he had admitted tweaking people's brain casually with his virus?

Dana sniffed and said nothing, her hands gripping the sheets of her gown tightly in her staring at the ground. She didn't feel stupid enough to want another Greene fiddling with her head so soon after what his mother had done, even if he was the one who helped save her.

But it was an odd comparison to think about regardless. His mother caused trouble, and her son was here trying to help.

"I apologize, for causing you this much pain," he said softly. "Perhaps Zeus was right," he muttered.

"About what, how everything is a lie?" She scorned, her voice cracking. "My brother being a terrorist scum? Oh wait, how the guy I thought was him is an impostor. Not just any imposter, but a monster that took his identity?" The hot tears began to escape despite her anger. She quickly covered her face from the stranger.

"He cares about your feelings enough to know you clearly didn't need the truth right now."

"What do you know, huh?!" She glared, her voice was trembling.

He didn't say anything nor made any expression with his dull green eyes.

A part of her could not believe she had said those same disgusting words their mother had used on her brother when he had picked that woman apart and destroyed her with his words. She looked down and grimace.

"I prefer this," she admitted this quietly.

She felt stupid regardless, and angry. Angry at herself mostly. He was going to keep the truth to himself too but for what? To make himself feel better? A selfish fuckhead that would lie to her face while she looked even more stupid as she ranted and fought with herself, fought what people said about him. She would have resented him even more if he had done that.

She was glad she learned the truth now than later. She was glad. Dana wiped her cheeks with her palm and the side of her wrist.

Something nudged her elbow and she looked down at the tissue box offered by him. A brief glare towards the man that stood tall in front of her, Dana begrudgingly accepted it and scrunched the tissue against her face as he stepped back, returning to his chair.

"We barely know each other," she muttered this bitterly. "Why did he bother himself with me?"

Why save her life when what they have was a lie? Why go through all these lengths if he feared the outcome was this, nothing between them.

Because she was useful? Look at her, look at where that had landed her. She was nothing now. She should have been left for dead, but she was here instead – alive, not dead.

The older man remained silent.

"I can bring him in if you want?" he asked.

"I doubt he wants to see me," she scoffed. "I'm better off alone." The words came out easily, a form of habit that she had developed over the years ever since Alex left her behind. She had repeated those words to herself, to her friends she makes quickly and drop, to those people she had burned and used to get by.

A cold bitter familiarity that was all left of her old life.

"What are you going to do now?" he said.

Run away? The thought came again. To what, to where, to who? She still carried the virus in her and yesterday evening proved her recovery from Redlight was too good to be true. But what were her options then? She thought bitterly. Back to being on her own, back to being the Dana Mercer who hustled, con, manipulated people for their money to get by – with no family now, no friends and no future waiting for her. She didn't even have her own life anymore to get back to – no options. She had none.

She had no one.

"I don't know," Dana whispered and crossed her arms, pressing them against her body.

"My advice, come to Houston," he said. "I can setup your transfer and provide both conventional and… nonconventional medical help for you. You will also have your own place if you need it."

She glanced at him in surprise. "Why would you help me?" she asked with a frown.

"Well, it was either save you like your brother asked, or kill you both and eat you."

Dana stiffened. She sucked in her shaky breath then looked at the smiling green eyes. Was this guy serious?

He laughed softly at her expression. "Sorry," he murmured at her glare.

"I'm glad you went with option one," she said drily.

He actually grinned, enjoying her jaded sense of humor. What a prick.

"It's basic instinct to look out for your own kind," he suddenly answered.

The smile on his face disappearing when he lowered his gaze.

"To be honest… I did it more for his sake and not just for yours," he said. "You don't know how much family means to us. Without family, we're kinda meaningless, just… monsters."

Family. She couldn't help but scoff in disdain. Believing in her own brother was what got her into this mess.

"Technically, you're still his sister. For one, you carry the virus," he told her. "Two–" He smiled softly at her. "–that's how he feels about you."

She looked away with a sniff.

"We have nothing in common," she said and shook her head. "What we had was a lie." A lie they told each other, and to themselves, expecting from the other because they both happened to come from the same bitch of a mother and grew up in that hellhole with the other.

They were the Mercers. Her big brother had succeeded and pulled through in the face of everything that was their shitty life, and Manhattan, his affliction, the Outbreak were no different to the circumstances that would see them less in life. Despite everything, they were in this together. He was still fighting and was there for her when she needed him the most. But this time, he needed her too.

They were a family.

They were both a bunch of stupid idiots who deluded themselves over a bond that didn't even exist.

She no longer had her brother anymore. Her big brother wasn't there for her. Her big brother didn't even want to be there for her – and that hurt a lot. A revelation that squeezed her chest, left her breathless and choking even now.

She never had him. He was dead. Dead before even the mess went down. Dead before their spat five years ago. She should have known that she lost her brother when he barely called her, when he ran from his past, leaving her.

To think she left everything behind just to reconcile with a man that didn't want to do anything with her unless it suited him.

She hated this, hated the fact she was breaking down in front of a stranger, no less – and over a fucking scumbag that ruined people's live. Who ruined her life, she seethed inwardly.

She wanted to scream. She wanted to cry. She wanted to throw something, preferably at that fucker's face and shake him. How could he do this, how could this happen? What happened to him? What went wrong between them? How could he do this to her?! Did she mean nothing to him, nothing at all?!

What did she do to earn this?

She just wanted anything but this. Especially not this.

She wanted her brother back.

She tried to hold on, tried to hold back, she had been avoiding thinking about it for the past few days, because she knew, she knew she wouldn't be able to keep it at bay. The tears freely spilled down her face despite her best efforts. She gasped and shuddered, finally crumbling while she inwardly cringed, aware of the strange man was looking at her.

Another part of her gave up hiding them. She just didn't care anymore.

"He's waiting outside for you, you know," he told her gently.

No. Her stomach squeezed uncomfortably, and she shook her head. She didn't want to see him, especially that face, her brother's face again. Anyone but him, least of all in a state like this.

"Why should I trust him?" she said, her eyes red and downcast. "I barely know him." She inhaled deeply, her voice was quiet, and it cracked when she spoke, "We only stuck together because… I don't know. I guess no one wants to face the zombie apocalypse alone."

But there was no apocalypse anymore. No monsters, no Blackwatch wasn't going to hunt them down anytime soon. No longer bound by some hellhole, there was no reason for them to stick to one another. He got what he wanted, and it would be better for her to move on and leave all this fucked-up mess behind – and that included him.

Was this the same reasonings her own brother had used when he left her behind? Reminders of his past he wanted to wipe his hands off. A part of her couldn't blame him, did anyone want to remind themselves of the past like theirs? Another part of her couldn't help but twist with anger, to be put in the same box as their mother, as something to be left behind or used.

It sickened her, the whole thing sickened her, and a monster wearing his face, assuming his identity didn't help. In fact, it felt more like a twisted joke on top of everything else. Her brother's own Frankenstein having to clean up and deal with the mess he left behind. More reasons to separate their ways.

She was not some responsibility for him to be stuck with.

"I barely even know you," she added, her downcast eyes raised to meet the older man's. "I shouldn't even trust you at all," she whispered as she glared.

"The offer still stands," he said, pulling out his business card and placing onto the table. "I will not insist, but I do hope we have a start of something here."

She said nothing when he moved and made his way towards the door.

"I'm sorry for your lost," he said. "I… didn't know it would affect you this much. Goes to show he has more senses than me."

The door shut behind him and she was left all alone again.

From outside, the soft sound of a woman wailing in her grief could hardly be heard except by one. He leaned against the wall, arms crossed in his empty glaring at the wall across.

"I don't know what you plan to do with her, but if this is some roundabout way for you to separate us," Alex said scathingly. "Don't think I'm going to leave her alone with you."

"The more the merrier," Pariah said. "You should be more concerned about her than making this about yourself, Zeus."

He turned around and walked off as his brother glared at his back.

---

AN: I had to take out the bowling joke and Pariah joking he was a miracle worker, and his weird moment of laughing at the fact Dana technically his sister too.

In the revamp, I wanted Dana to be less... vulnerable since she's retreated to her hard shell. Less confuse, less trusting too unlike the original. At the same time, I do want her to soften a bit enough for her grieve… "healthily" instead of letting the whole shitshow being a turning point of her going back to her "old" mean self now that she had no one to look up to and no reasons to be nice to people.

Overall, I'm happier even though the chapter lost some bit of its hopeful tone and shit humor.

Omake: Freaky Friday (AKA dumb unnecessary shit the author wrote)

Pariah glared, his green eyes swirling into amber-gold and silver ones matched his gaze. Zeus' claw in his flesh as his own fingers gouged into his chest.

"Using my own tricks on me won't make you win, Zeus!" he snarled at his brother as Zeus bared his teeth.

The heat in his chest grew where Zeus' claw was sinking in. Unbearably burning as both consumed each other from the inside. Both stood a standstill in their struggle, having spent all their violent tricks beneath the stormy rain. Now they fought a molecular war.

Thunder boomed. Black and black-red tendrils splitting from their forms against each other's will.

"Fuck you!" Alex hissed as both were swallowed in a swirl of tendril.

A pull and a rush of heat, the world flipped, and Pariah stumbled back, having rejected quickly as artificial Blacklight succeeded at pushing him back.

Alex just skid across the ground, the rejection shoving him off violently as well. He looked up and raised his hands but stopped to gawp.

"What the..." Pariah looked at his hand, claws now.

Lightning flashed, and the hooded form illuminated, revealing Alex Mercer's confuse face with... green eyes? Zeus looked across at his own body in confusion before looking at his current body. He saw the silver belt, he saw his lack of hood and jacket. He was wearing a black turtleneck.

"Fuck," Alex whispered, Patrick Gordon's new blue eyes widening at the dilemma.

They somehow switched bodies. With a frown, Zeus mentally twitched, expecting a change back to his form but he screamed in pain at the sudden burn in his flesh. It was like... Pariah had injected parasite strain again. Uncontrollable tendrils flickered across his body.

Pariah tried the same only to be slammed with a headache that grew stronger as he tried to brute force Zeus' own body to become him. But it felt like being hit by a wall every time. He felt... stunted. Stunted in a young Blacklight's body. For some reason the usual things that he make his own body do was met with pain. He breathed quickly, green eyes widened, understanding the situation.

"Your body..." he said, shuddering. "is at adolescent stage!"

Alex glared at that.

"I can't change! This cannot be happening!" Alex-Pariah snapped, Gordon's voice coming out of the hooded being.

This was weird, fucking weird. Alex thought, so confused.

"I have to go to a parent's teacher interview for Hank tonight!"

Patrick-Zeus got up, shaken. "Dana's expecting me with groceries," he said this quietly then both virus looked at each other. Both immediately rushed, and tried to consume each other, repeating the earlier process. With a black swarm of tendrils, they were rejected again but not without a change.

"Mother... fooping!" Pariah snarled after he checked his face again. He looked at Alex with Alex's own face.

Still fucking weird, Alex thought.

"You've got to go to the interview," he said, more like ordered.

"What?" Alex's rough voice snapped out of the older man's mouth. "I'm not going to do that!"

"Zeus, if you don't do as I say I will blackmail and tell the girl what you've been up to," Pariah snapped.

Dana will chew him out then. He couldn't underestimate his sister's anger, because last time he did, he had to stay outside for a month... in Houston horrible rainy weather.

"Fine!" Alex snapped. "But you've got to do the same! Buy Dana grocery, get there fast and on time. Late, and she'll know something is up."

"Deal!" Pariah snapped.

---

Dana looked at her quiet brother, who avoided her gaze often.

"Are you alright, Alex?" she asked her shifty brother.

"Yes," an unfamilliar, different American accent came out of his mouth. "I mean yeah! I meant... yeah," he corrected quickly with rough gravelly voice.

Dana stared at her brother for a long time. "Look at me," she suddenly said.

"What?"

"Look. At. Me."

He turned slowly, green eyes looked back at the blue unwillingly.

"Jesus, Patrick. I don't know how this happened or why you're... using my brother body. But please, stop."

"Queen Bee, I would like to. But I'm stuck."

---

"Dad, are you alright?" the Chinese boy asked, staring at his quiet father who was fidgeting and fuming while he paced back and forth.

"I'm fine," he told him with a rough voice.

Hank frowned at that voice, then blinked when he noticed icy blue eyes.

"Why your eyes like that?" the boy said.

"What?"

"Your eyes. It's blue."

Fuck. "Shit," Patrick said hoarsely, but then smiled weakly when a parent waiting nearby heard and glared at him. "Uh..." he groped when Hank looked at him strangely. "Y'know what, let's... just leave," he snapped quickly.

Hank just stared. Perhaps his father got a sore throat or something, and decided to wear contact lenses... for some reason. But then his father was always a bit... weird. "Okay." The boy hopped off his chair and walked off.

Alex just sighed and rushed after the boy, hating being inside school already... with so many kids and their parents. He rushed out and immediately prepared to run.

"Dad, where are you going?" the boy called as he stood... beside a silver sedan.

Alex just grunted in frustration at the idea of closed space around him.

---

"I'm not going to say it!" Patrick crossed his arms stubbornly.

"You tell me what my brother has been up to, right now!" Dana shouted.

"Nope."

"PATRI–"

Someone's phone rang and Alex's face... well its Patrick's now, frowned and his hand went inside his chest, much to Dana's gagging and revulsion as he searched his biomass, then picked out a ringing phone. He answered the call and put it at his ears.

"I need your help," his own voice greeted him, sounding desperate.

Hell... was that how he sounded like? Dana tried to snatch the phone but he pulled away quickly. He wished he could infect her, make her sleep that's all, but Zeus own body and virus was even rebelling at his own effort of control. Rigid, stunted, and inducing unhappy feelings... like Zeus. Best not to risk it.

"What's wrong?" he asked sharply, fighting off Queen Bee who was now on his back as she tried to snatch the phone.

"You happen to own a freezer from hell?"

What?

---

"Is that Alex? Is that him!" He winced at his sister's voice and the sound of struggling in the background.

"Ignore Queen Bee. So what did you mean by freezer from hell?" Pariah asked quickly as Alex stared at the freezer... with something black oozing out of the door, growing black slimy veins across the garage's floor and wall. Nightmare fuel for Hank.

The boy had ran off screaming when he saw that.

"I'll rephrase," Alex said hoarsely. "You happen to store your biomass in a freezer?"

"Yeah."

"Well it's now growing out of control."

"...Fuck."