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.

9. Reconciliation

Chapter Eight: Reconciliation

---

2015, Houston TX

"What brought this on, Bee?" the phone said monotonously on the counter.

"I saw the reports."

"What reports?"

"The asymptomatic survivors."

Silence, she could only hear the beeping and the distant rush hour. Daylight bright and blinding white outside, the heat seeping in despite the black-tinted glass of the sliding door. At times like these, she preferred the monsoon seasons.

A fuzzy sigh exhaled. "You know where to meet me."

"When?"

"9 o'clock. I could spare an hour, I'll see you there then." With that, the phone chimed when Patrick signed out of the call.

Dana stood there, hands rested on the counter and she leaned on top of it, her fingers repeatedly tapping on the stone.

"You're going to be there as well, right?"

Silence, her blue eyes stared expectedly at the phone.

"Yeah," her brother's voice finally answered her before he ended the call.

Dana sighed in relief then she snatched her phone, ready to leave a text message for Dave.

---

Late in the evening, Dana arrived Buffalo Bayou Park with laptop in her bag. She walked along the smooth white concrete path under the purple-orange sky, Downtown's skylines stood watching from the other side of the river. A pretty sight that made her itched for her camera and phone. It was nice kind of place to have a walk and think about, a tourist spot in the daytime and during certain events, it would hardly be sparse from people.

She found them not far from the river, two men standing far apart and looking like they didn't want to have any business with each other.

Dana rolled her eyes at the sight before running towards them.

"A place with a bench would be nice," she complained at Patrick before turning to look at Alex.

He gave a brief nod to her, his worried face the familiar sickly pale contour and icy blue eyes, his hair back to black and sleek beneath the baseball cap. A real sunglass laid resting on top of it. He wore an unbuttoned pale blue shirt with white singlet beneath, dressed for the climate.

"I take it you were informed by her," Patrick commented when he saw that brief glance between the two.

"It's up to Dana," Alex said stubbornly.

Pariah only sighed at that as he stood on the grass.

"Well?" he said expectedly to her.

"I'm sure you know as well, Pat, considering you like to keep track on the reports on there," Dana snapped before she started to pace around.

"So there are asymptomatic people with Redlight in them. That's hardly any news."

"I would've thought Blackwatch would finish their job at least," Alex drawled.

Patrick only shook his head. "Blackwatch can try, but as long there's no foolproof for diagnosing positives, especially when it comes to asymptomatic, there will be that one percent out of the eighty-one of millions infected slipping off, simply because of human error. It also took two years, remember, before the symptoms started showing at Hope barring the babies."

Dana pressed her hands together, wringing them before she let them fall back to her side. "They're saying the lack of symptoms is part of… the infection stage. That those people will come out of it. And they have, people are still dying from Redlight."

It was still spreading. Silently, persisting, but not growing in numbers… yet. She knew it would take a Runner for that to happen. But she couldn't get rid of the feeling Redlight was just laying low. Perhaps… it wasn't wrong for them to study Redlight.

"Did you know there's still part of Manhattan that's still under quarantine?" Dana shot a look at them. "They live and do their own thing, just like anyone outside their… golden cage, but they have one huge facility dedicated to them, researching Redlight. Th-they send people there, doing their testing."

"Redlight is infectious even in asymptomatic state. And if there are symptoms, it would appear as a common cold before disappearing then coming back again and again," Patrick told her.

Except the mortality rate was worse and add the fact death by riddled with cancers and deteriorating brain, Redlight was and still is the contender for the worst disease of the modern age.

"Inhibition pills don't work," she went on. "Anti-virus drugs having to be upgraded and produced, again and again, suppressants garbage against it-"

"War-dialing," Alex said softly. "It's adapting to whatever being chuck in its way."

Evolving.

She looked up and nodded at that. "Y-yeah."

Patrick gave a sad smile. "There is no conventional cure for Redlight, Bee. Once infected, you either have to live along with it or carry death-threatening scars left by it, by then it probably has taken years out of your life."

She stared at him, knowing she owed her life to this man. Dana once wondered how different it would've been, how different their lives would be if she hadn't lived… or worse. It was a thought she didn't like to ponder often.

"Despite being asymptomatic, those people, their children." She stopped. "They didn't come out right."

The older man stared at her, slightly tilting his head when he blinked. "Is this what it's all about?"

"No!" she snapped then faltered. "Yes."

It was Alex this time who gave a concerned look.

"Dana," Patrick began gravely. "We've talked about this. Any children of yours won't be affected."

"Well, tell that to those women who were supposed to have few more years in their infected lives until they got pregnant!" she yelled, panicking suddenly appearing visible.

"Dana, did something happen?" Alex stepped closer to her.

She raised her hands, stopping any contact before she breathed in. She gave a weak apologetic look at Alex. His worried frown on his brow had deepened.

Patrick only gave her a knowing look. "False?"

Fuck him and his presumptuous correctness!

"It's false," she said snidely. "I took many. I just… had a panic attack, that's all." She sighed. The days living with Dave, she came to miss Alex a lot, those days when she could freely speak and unload her problems at any time, though it was selfish of her to use Alex like that. He didn't deserve having to deal with her problems.

"Those… mothers. They were supposed to have the same chance like others, except they didn't. Their chances shorten from years into months. Redlight wanted something out of their kids." If it didn't kill them in the womb. "How am I different from them?"

She wasn't above the risk, above those chances as she liked to think. It could happen to her.

"Well, for one, you're latent."

"Latency is part of the virus life cycle," she pointed back. "I'm no different than those people stuck in Manhattan."

"This is gonna be one of those I have to convince that the future is gonna be alright conversation," he drawled.

The Mercer sibling just gave him an ugly glare.

"Look!" Pariah said, aggravated at having to repeat. "Nothing, nothing is going happen to you."

"Is it because of you?"

He gave a questioning look.

"I know you can control the disease like your mother do. Alex told me."

"Are you saying I'm the reason you haven't developed into the latter stage of infection?"

"Yeah."

Patrick shook his head then gave an annoyed look at Alex, no doubt he blamed all the paranoid and pessimistic thoughts on him. Alex only replied with a cold glare. "If you want an example, take a drive outside Texas. If you somehow start developing symptoms after getting as far away from me, then that's your answer."

"Just answer her question, Philip," Alex warned.

"I'm not doing anything to you," Patrick said. "It's part of you, part of your biology. It has no reason to infect because your cells are continuing its existence. The only reason it would want to actively infect you if your body demands change."

Endogenous retrovirus, that was the word to describe the viral elements that were part of the genome. About eight to five percent of the human genome was made of it, all because of some virus back in the days infecting germ-line cells that ultimately spread across the gene pool of its host population. Human beings were part virus in some way.

"Would the virus genetics be inherited?" she asked.

"In daughter cell? Yes. It's replicating those genetics in cell division."

"What about… what about…"

"Are you asking if those same genetics can be carried into your children, without infection?"

"Y-yeah."

There was a deep long look he gave her before he turned to Alex.

"It depends… how much the virus has changed your biology."

"You undid the changes, right?" Alex said quietly.

Patrick blinked and pulled out his glasses, folding them when his green eyes lowered their gaze. "Some, the ones that would likely cause trouble," Patrick answered softly. "Though, this kind of question going to require testing. If you ask me, there's nothing to be worried about."

"That wasn't a full no."

"Knowing you, I don't think that's the kind of answer you want," he pointed back at her. "You want to know the what ifs of the unlikeliest chance happening. In a way… you two are alike," Pariah said, glancing at Alex.

"S-so what if it happens. What if bad shits…" Dana breathed in deeply, her voice shaking slightly.

"Worst case scenario, if the baby or you showed earliest sign of infection during pregnancy, well… I'll leave the options up to you."

"Can you… can you do something about it? Like, keep the virus in shutdown mode?" Dana said weakly.

Patrick briefly smiled at her question. "I can as a prevention method."

"Can't you… you know, use your virus if the baby turned out infected? A treatment."

Alex gave a sharp breath of inhale. "Dana," he began.

"I know what I'm asking," she said quickly. "J-just, I want to know options outside the obvious ones."

For once, Pariah gave an uncomfortable look when he turned away from her. "With mine, yes. With yours, potentially. But it depends on how infected the baby is. If it's like you, then it would be a similar case how we treated you. But if it's fully infected, might as well kill the baby then just because it doesn't suit what we want, right?"

A part of her was disgusted at his cruel joke. She wanted to be angry at him when he said that, but she remembered. He was born like this.

Born infected. Son of Greene. Here he was, a completely normal guy. Well, as normal as he can be. Here she was asking him to change a baby… that was like him, to turn it into something else. Like replacing toy parts except with infected cells, with genes that were acceptable. Designer Babies.

"You know what I mean, Patrick," she said softly.

He raised his hands apologetically. "Runner children aren't like humans. Humans learn to walk, to talk, me… I learned to infect and kill while at it. Not to mention, the kid might not turn out right in terms of appendages and brain. So, if there are problems, I can do that."

"Look, if it turns out something like… you and Alex, then I'm not gonna change that."

"What?" It was Alex turned to say that. "Dana, you're keeping a child that could potentially cause an apocalypse."

"You and Patrick didn't. You guys taught yourself, right? It's no different than teaching normal human kid not to stick their tongue into an electric fan!" she pointed back.

"You don't know what it's like… to deal with a part of you. This isn't like teaching right or wrong, Dana," her brother told her gravely.

Dana turned and glared at him. "You have no idea," she said quietly.

"He's right on that, you know," Patrick added.

She exhaled heavily and raised her hands. "I'm overthinking," she said out loud. "I mean this matter doesn't just involve us. David needs to know."

Another sharp inhale from Alex. She was getting pretty tired hearing that, considering he was hardly being helpful here.

"You decided to tell him?" The older man looked at her concernedly.

She hesitated. "Yes and no. Just don't know when. Soon, I hope."

"You need help with the talking?"

She looked up at him with surprise. "You don't have a problem at all?"

Patrick gave her an odd look. "Why should I? I trust you not to make a mess out of your life. I can even provide you with my stash of information when it comes to convincing him."

"I expected… a lot of no from you, to be honest." And from Alex, and she could hear from his breathing pattern and the fidgeting that he was itching to say something.

The older man only shrugged. "Worst case scenario, I'll just erase his memories of us."

Oh right. Dana exhaled. He could afford to lose considering he had that trick of his up in his sleeves.

"I'll… contact you when the talk is going to happen."

---

"Why does he need to know?!"

"One day he's going to find me wandering in the middle of a goddamn state highway, then what am I going to say? What am I going to say when he demands why I can't remember what I was doing a whole day or where I was?! What am I going to say when he finds me over some fucking dead body!"

"Don't exaggerate." Alex scowled back at her.

"But they happen, Alex! I go do my thing, and all of a sudden, I wake up under Gordon's roof two days later, wondering the worst while you guys hide... the fucking bodies - I don't know!" Her hands dropped to her side once she finished wringing the air with her hands.

"You didn't hurt anyone. We made sure of it."

"You could be saying that." Dana looked at him then her eyes fell as she exhaled, brushing through her blond hair, frustrated.

He couldn't understand why she was hung over every time she blanked out and immediately assumed the worst. He thought she would let it go after learning she did nothing.

He'd learned with Dana… at least the leftover part of what Greene did wasn't actively malicious. Just strange and different, unpredictable in her spontaneous actions. For the most part, she did nothing. Absolutely nothing. Just sat there, blanked out, waiting.

"I still don't understand how you're not sick and tired of having to take care of me," Dana said quietly. "Don't you want to do something else besides… looking out for me?"

It was a tactic he'd learned she often did. She would deflect most of her problems and focus on him instead. It was how she managed to get him out of the room, it was how she managed to get him hanging out with the son of Greene, it was how she managed to move out regardless how that discussion over her decision ended on a sour note. That he was the problem here.

He only learned to grit through it all. Still... when knowing their history, when knowing what Dana had dealt early on her life, of a brother walking out on her doing his dream job, and the sense of lingering guilt she had over his predecessor for being selfish - in wanting to just be there for her.

"Dana," Alex began darkly.

"Then why?" She flared, swiftly cutting him off. "I don't hurt people, as you say, but I'm still not allowed to make my own fucking decision over my life choice when I can afford it," she snapped. "But when I want to make sure some guy isn't making a big mistake over having a were-Runner chick as a girlfriend that could break his neck like a twig, oh I'm the one exaggerating!"

"Those blank out moments rarely happen!" Four major incidents over the course of years, hardly worth the unnecessary exaggeration. "You don't need to explain yourself to him." Alex glared at his sister.

Why does she always spin herself into this web of anxiety? Her worries were legitimate but they always came to nothing. Couldn't she see that?

Silence, his arm raised up to reach out to her but he stopped mid-stride.

"Why do you really want to tell him?" He looked at her earnestly. "You can leave it all behind."

She blinked her eyes rapidly, a habit she often did when she couldn't believe what she was seeing or hearing, a habit that often happened when she was keeping her anger in check.

"Alex, I don't-" Dana breathed in deeply. "I don't want to leave - this," she admitted quietly.

"You can either have what - whatever we have here." Alex gestured at the empty apartment around them. "Or we risk this all… but for what?"

"It's not as black and white as you like to think," she snapped and growled. "And I'm not going to continue digging up our great country's skeletons, okay!" She jabbed at him repeatedly. "I'm not… I'm not going to ruin all of this." She sucked in her breath and slumped. "Not with David now," she added quietly before turning around and marching towards the window.

"If it was just you and me… I would say to hell with everything," she told him when she looked out of the window. "Even though we would be burning the bridge our friendly neighborhood control freak won't like," she added drily.

Alex huffed at that before he stood a few feet behind her.

"Then why?" he asked. Why tell him? Why bring him into our world? Why not just leave all of this behind?

"Because it doesn't feel right," she said, pressing the edge of her palm against her temple. "Because he deserves to know, he deserves an explanation if we have to leave these years behind. Or… I fuck things up for us. I owe him this, Alex." Her blue soft eyes looked up to him. "You of all people should understand what I'm going through."

The last time he dug his heel on the matter with David, it just resulted in tears, silent contempt, and a period of no contact.

The original Mercer wasn't there at all whenever Dana had to make important life choices. It would explain so much why she found him aggravating - or the idea itself of referring to him awkward to her even if the matter involved them all. Dana grew to be independent regardless of the fact she saw herself as a clingy girl.

He was entirely opposite of his original. He was always there for her, for good and bad moments of her life now.

At times, Dana grew annoyed and frustrated because of this. Whether it was because of him, or because of the idea of always having to be dependent on someone, he didn't know. But it was stifling and suffocating for her.

"Breathing space, Alex. Have you heard about it?"

Sometimes he couldn't understand when it comes to her. He wants to be supportive, he ends up annoying her. He wants to be distant, he ends up worrying her.

But for her sake and theirs, he was willing.

He was willing to try even though this was going to blow up in their face. He was willing to put faith on a man who he believed would probably disappoint and break her heart. In anyone's eyes who go about their day to day life, happy and blissfully in content, they were an unnecessary complication. No one would know how to deal with them. No one would know how to handle the truth.

Because what were the odds they would be facing the very people at the center of the Outbreak?

Alex quietly stood at the doorway of the old apartment. His eyes glinting in the dark as they rested on the curled-up figure on the sofa. Not much of their old stuff were left, not even photos, not even the ornaments Dana bought on the whim to spruce up the place. Whatever traces of them living in this place were gone, stored away in safe rented out storage under a different name. It was just an empty apartment now.

For six years he had lived in this city, and when he thought about it, he just couldn't believe that they haven't once moved away from here. Once, he thought about a future of always on the run. Always moving city to city, town to town, state to state, heck even country to country.

If that was what it meant to stay on the run, to disappear without a trace, to survive without the eyes of Blackwatch searching for any signs of them being alive.

Except that wasn't living. If he had to, he would rip Dana's only means of communication. If he had to, he would take any sense of connection. If he had to, he would even cut off any trails or any means for her leaving a trace of their existence. If he had to, he would keep her locked in place in a room with no door if it meant nothing could get inside.

If he had to, he would even leave her side.

He would be taking everything his sister spent and worked hard on if it meant she stayed safe.

But now, she could afford a happy life, if she was careful and had a purpose besides digging a grave full of lies, conspiracies and godawful truth. All of these years they spent building this life they have, could they afford telling the truth to another?

She could leave it all behind, instead, she brought it back up.

He still couldn't understand why David needed to know. She lies, she cheats, she steals and snatches for things she knows she shouldn't, so why shouldn't this be any different? But then Dana always had more just sense and could see straight through the matter.

Slowly he walked up to the pale figure curled up on the couch, slightly illuminated by the warm orange city lights outside the window. A smartphone was gripped tightly in her hand poking out beneath her body. He laid his jacket over her, carefully taking the phone.

A silent huff greeted him and he looked down to see the pale golden retriever curled up on the floor. Snowflake quietly whined in greeting. He was surprised he didn't find it sleeping on top with her.

Silently, he stepped back and settled down on the other end of the couch, watching her sleeping. Alex grimaced and looked away.

He wasn't the one… who made all of this possible.

That was all Pariah.

His eyes settled on the smartphone and it lit when he tapped the screen. A picture of him and Dana smiling back at the camera.

But he was the one who could make her smile like that.

Alex glanced down at her again. Not sure what to feel now. Here he was, waiting for a person he could trust to keep her happy. And then what? She moves on with her life with David. He was glad at that… at the same time, there was that rush of emptiness.

She doesn't need you anymore.

She wasn't the confused woman from six years ago who had willingly let him walk in her life when realizing she was alone in this world of lies and running away, a world where she stood between monsters pretending to be humans and humans being monsters. A world between The Reason and the now. A world where she must not hold onto anyone.

But that wasn't the case anymore.

Even if David disappointed them all, she would be able to hold out on her own. Sure, she would need help once in a while but… she no longer has to cling to him for support.

Her decisions were proof.

He was jealous to be honest, but he had gone over this feeling after arguments and shouting match they had over his distrust, over his low opinions on others, over her sanity, their sanity on allowing another person in their world.

But he trusted her judgment, that was enough regardless of his opinions on the matter.

Dana stirred slightly in her sleep and he slowly turned to look back at her, noting the fact the worn look on her face was from tears she hid from him. Emotionally exhausted. Better than stress at least.

A sharp sniff, her fist squeezed the missing phone in her hand and her eyes slowly fluttered open at feeling that.

Dana sat up quickly and began searching the dark for her missing phone, her hands patting her pockets, then the coffee table in front.

"Looking for this?" He tapped a button and the screen shined when he held it up.

"Jesus, Alex!" She breathed in quickly, pressing a hand against her furiously beating heart, before frowning at the sight of her phone in his hand. "Give me that," she scolded and snatched the phone.

"He hasn't called."

Her action faltered, then slowed down when she checked the call logs. Sighing, Dana slumped against the armrest of the couch, palms pressed against her eyes.

"Fuck," she whispered. "I bet he's running for the hills." She made a sort of snort.

"He would be stupid to let you go," Alex said quietly and stood up.

"Haha," she said sarcastically. "He totally would want to have a life with the sister of the bio-terrorist."

"What makes you think he won't believe you?" Alex humored her as he went towards the kitchen.

He'd learned being pessimistic no matter how realistic wasn't going to help Dana. His opinion didn't matter anyway in this situation, hers though, does.

"Hmm, I don't know. Maybe it's because the whole world says otherwise," she continued in that sharp snarky tone. "I mean… I don't blame him if he doesn't. Considering, y'know. I sort of did the same with you."

"Dana, you're comparing yourself with a monster here," Alex told her gravely as he stood behind the kitchen counter.

She knew, hundreds died from his own bare hands and he couldn't blame her for feeling the way she had. After all, he couldn't help but share the same sentiments with the dead screaming inside him.

"You always have a low opinion of yourself, Alex," she said quietly. "A lot can be said about the past, but… let's just leave it there, okay? It's not gonna do any good for the both of us." She smiled and shook her head.

Always forgiving for other's sake, Alex smiled in the dark. It was probably why she had looked up to her no good older brother for a long time.

"I loved my brother, I just hated what he became…"

"Yeah," he said, filling the silence between them. "Are you alright?" he asked, looking concernedly.

"Trying not to make myself a nervous wreck lately. But other than that, yeah, I'm fine," Dana said drily and stood up as well, jacket left on the couch before she slowly walked to the kitchen.

"You really shouldn't compare yourself to me," he said it again, noticing her uneasiness, the tension stiff on her shoulders. "You're the sister who was out for truth. Me… well, we know how it goes," he said sardonically with a dry half-smile.

"You know you're godawful at pep talks." She snorted as she smiled. "Setting yourself low isn't making me look better in comparison."

What else could he say? As much as he liked to see himself as better than the original Mercer, in a black and white world humans lived in, he knew his actions had no excuses. A cynical voice inside him made sure to remind himself the difference between him and Dana's older brother were simple. It was how they go about fucking people's lives and their motivations.

But he learned for the better, for Dana's sake, didn't he? Not a lot could be said the same with some humans. At least, that was what he liked to think.

"You have that look on your face," Dana mentioned this quietly.

"Just thinking," he told her.

"About what?"

"You," he lied. "Getting married."

"If that's what David wants." Dana shrugged. "I don't really care if there's a ring on my finger or not. As far as I know, I'm fine with what we had - have," she corrected quickly. "I mean, I know being married there's more expectation and all. But I'm willing."

He was quiet at that, watching her carefully. Her expression less subdued now, glad to see his small talks were helping. "Planning on moving out? Out of the city," he suggested.

Away from here. Leave it all behind. Regardless of Dana's fear about herself and her future, she could afford it. She didn't need them.

"Alex, he hasn't called," she reminded him softly. "I know you're getting my hopes up, but… I don't want to get them too high. Okay? Besides, I think that's counterproductive to what Pat thinks, considering the were-Runner thing I have."

"He's a control freak, Dana. He probably exaggerated some truth to make it seem better off staying in his city."

"He's convenient. I'm willing to put up with his bullshit."

"You have Snowflake, don't you?" He pointed at the quiet golden retriever who had sneakily moved from his spot and took up the couch.

"Snowflake makes me feel calm, but I doubt he could stop me. Probably wouldn't want to hurt me if worse comes to worst." She smiled at the dog watching them quietly. His tail twitched when he noted her looking. "I rather have you close by, in case… something bad happens," she finished somberly.

"I'm willing to move."

"You're just as fucking worse as Patrick." Dana laughed and grinned. "I'm just trading one prick with one asshole." She slapped him at his arm.

He gave an apologetic shrug. "Have you eaten?"

"I managed to weasel Patrick into making his baked pies." She smiled. "It's the least he could do for fucking our talk. But other than that, yes… doctor, I have been taking my meals," she said drily then her expression turned serious. "What about you?"

"What about what?"

"Any future plan?"

He hesitated. "Not at the moment."

"Don't you want to do something for yourself?" she said quietly.

"Dana, what else is there in this world for me to do?"

Besides finding out what Blackwatch was up to.

"Exactly!" She shook her head, smiling softly to herself. "I get the selfless streak, Alex. But you must want something. Beyond making people realizing their mistakes!"

He slumped, he knew she wouldn't let this go. Dana's blue eyes looked at him expectedly as she waited. He sighed.

"Travel the world." But not for the sight… just for the sake of wandering.

"Well, I hope I'm not stopping you anymore. You deserve better," she said.

Alex only made a noncommittal grunt. At that moment, his phone rang.

She froze, looking at him expectedly. No one called him, not at this ungodly hours. Not unless it was Pariah, but they planned to meet later on.

With a knotted frown on his brow, he brought the phone up to the counter and answered.

---

He woke up to a cold empty bed and blinked blearily at the ceiling, wondering if had she woken up earlier again. But the revelation sunk down heavily onto his mind and then he remembered.

Hey, your girlfriend isn't who she says she is. Oh, she's also the sister of the 2008 Manhattan's Outbreak bioterrorist. That killed millions.

He groaned and turned beneath his cover, stuffing his face on the empty pillow beside him. The smell of her and her shampoo still lingered in the soft fabric.

It was better for both of them, well, mostly for him, Dave assumed, for his head to get around this whole… baggage, situation, truth? Whatever, Dave glared at the wall across the bed. They weren't converting him to some new truth or perspective because if they were they wouldn't give him his own space and time. But in the end, they still expected an answer.

An answer that both of them won't like.

He didn't want this. He didn't ask for this. The easier way was just break off the relationship and get on with his life. Move on. Leave behind all the memories, the good and bad, leave behind all the struggle and changes they went through for one another. All for nothing. In place of her, only a hollowness in his life that would always linger after in some way or another.

He couldn't deny that it would be unfair for her. This, whatever this was, it was a big step from her. He should at least try before deciding to leap.

Dave sat himself up slowly and slid his feet onto the cold floor, the pale white digits of ten past three in the night blinking on the end table's clock. Realizing he wasn't getting much sleep again, Houston, Texas' EMT then shuffled his way to the bathroom, doing his early morning of getting himself awake and ready hours earlier.

He was not estranged from waking up in these ungodly hours, because ungodly hours were, as much as he disliked, his best working hours due to the amount of night shift he gets called in to fill. Immense amounts of strong coffee and good pay helped along the motivation and establishing this habit.

Half an hour later, he was standing at their apartment's kitchen counter, hot coffee in his hand.

Despite the warnings he was given, Dave had the blatant clippings of newspapers, articles, even pictures spread all over the dining counter for him to look at. He didn't have the heart to put them back in their respected folder.

Hope. Redlight. Experiment. Zombies, infected, monsters. A nuke. More experiments. Then Manhattan, and then a bigger nuke.

His eyes lingered on the woman - no, girl, Elizabeth Greene.

Her blank face, her green disinterested eyes, her auburn red hair.

He still couldn't understand how a human being… became something that had taken 80% percent and more of Manhattan's population in a fortnight. He could understand the virus being behind them. But the way they had described her, she was the one behind the virus. Not in the way that Alex Mercer unleashed upon Penn Station as a biggest fuck you to the world, but as in controlling the disease.

And he had to believe this hard explanation when an easier one was conveniently there?

Perhaps another example by her not-really siblings might correct that thought. Dave shuddered, recalling the sick joke Gordon pulled.

Dave sat down, grimacing at what he read, what his thoughts still struggled at.

That some… Illuminati existed. That they were behind the catastrophe of the Manhattan's Outbreak. That the government and military followed orders from these higher-ups.

If it was just the government, he had no problem believing it. Each country, each big multi-national corporate always had a dirty secret. For the military to actually play around with biological warfare, it was something he was able to believe due to the sad history of mankind. Biggest breaches of ethics still happen even now due to negligence or simple mistakes, but outright blatant? People always have a reason to hide the truth, people are prone to make mistakes, a country is no exception. But the thought of a vague group having that much power, that much control on their world, on their lives.

He couldn't imagine the ambition one would need to have such group to exist.

Whatever this was, it was a big enough deal for him to get killed for. A terrifying world Dave was entering in, where people could disappear without knowing how or why, and all because the government and those above wanted to keep the truth out of everyone's hands.

One step at a time, Dave. He breathed in deeply.

But the idea they screwed up so hard that the fruit of their labor would be out of a sci-fi horror show? That such a monstrous inhuman being could exist in this world.

There was such thing as a human behind the monster, there was familiarity in that. Business, power, the injustice of the world was impersonal, simply because he could understand the reasons, not the necessity, but the logic behind them. It was easy to understand why. They were humans, and he could understand humans.

But something not-human? That was it, that was the whole problem he had. He couldn't understand how… what was Elizabeth Greene? The clippings, the articles, the photos suggested the disease had some intention behind it.

Cara, or was it Dana? She has this virus, a child strain, a variation scrambled by an artificial version. The matter was not just about who she is, but of what now.

But that was impossible.

How about her brothers then? What were they? Was it a joke they played on him?

How about Elizabeth Greene?

And Alex Mercer, what about him, who is he, what the hell is he?

He just… he just couldn't understand! He exhaled in frustration and callously placed the coffee down, didn't care he left a brown circular stain on some precious glorified skeletons.

Dave's hard eyes slid across the white surface of the dining counter and onto the plastic cordless phone, the number surfacing up in his mind but he quickly squashed it down.

He hadn't made any contact with her for a week.

No email, no phone call, no face-to-face banter, no arguing over whose turn to cook or do the dishes, no quiet night sleeping on the couch and falling asleep to a late-night TV show, no…

To be truthful to himself, Dave was feeling vindictive about the whole affair.

Much of his silence and taking his sweet time over this wasn't more about his head getting around the matter, but more at the fact he wanted this can of worms she opened to stew in her guts. And he was feeling angry at himself for being… a petty bitch, as she would say. Life was too short for hate and grief anyway. Besides, it would only bring more pain. He'd seen enough, experienced enough of that in his work in the ER.

A soft huff escaped his mouth, an empty wry smile ghosted before he frowned. Instead, his hand reached out to the phone and typed the numbers that he often tried to avoid any situation that would make him desperate enough to use it. Except for now.

The phone rang for a while until the unfamiliar cold breath huffed against the phone.

"Hello," a steely voice answered.

Dave gulped deep and opened his mouth, "H-hey."

"Dave?"

"Yeah."

The phone was silent. Dave stared awkwardly at the circular brown coffee stain on the paper then realized quickly that Chase was waiting for more response from him.

"Uh," he stammered. "Do we have a place to talk for a while? In person. There are some things I want… that I don't understand."

"Isn't this." A pause. "Shouldn't she be up to this, Dave?"

"I know, but let's… we both agreed we're giving us space until I get a hand around this situation."

More judgmental silence, he was sure Chase was glaring at him, or pretending some unfortunate wall or something was him.

"Do you want Patrick on this?"

Gordon? He blinked in startle. "S-sure."

"Meet us now."

"Now?" Both eyebrows went up.

"You and I both know you are not going to get some sleep after this, so we might as well make use of that time you have."

With that, the phone clicked shut.

Did that man ever sleep?

---

A text message of where to go, an hour and more of driving to Houston's Downtown, Dave found himself in a quiet spot of an abandoned building from Houston's historic days. The kind of building hobos would linger and murder the fuck out of him if he so much encroached their territory.

Only he found two of Dana's siblings standing beneath the hollow dark entrance of its parking lot.

Gordon's dogs, all four black Labrador sat waiting at his feet. Their owner, for once, out of his casual business attire and missing his gold-rimmed spectacles. Everything about him screamed of shabby and worn out, he looked more like a junkie really if it weren't for his clean face and hands. Chase was standing upright and had his hands in his pocket, his ballcap gone but his startling curly blond hair remained.

They both watched him silently when he slowly went up to them.

"You don't look so good, Dave," Patrick commented when he stood and hesitated before them, staring at the dogs who lolled back cheerily at him.

"I've had a lot on my mind lately." Part of him realized now perhaps it was a mistake to come to them.

Cara… Cara was the sensible choice here, she wouldn't twist his neck or something… or murder him, leaving him in some abandoned area of Houston.

Gordon stared at him, silently amused from beneath his beany.

"Well, you're here. We're here. Might as well get onto it," he said then looked at Chase before he entered deeper into the building.

The dogs panted loudly before hurrying up and disappeared deeper into the darkness. Chase gave a brief look at him then motioned with his head to go on ahead. With nervous sweat prickling his skin, Dave looked at the abandoned derelict building of what was a hotel before walking in.

He followed the faint glimmer of happy dogs yipping and soft taps of Gordon's feet up ahead.

Along the walls, they passed by graffiti and abandoned area where worn out mattress could be seen. A small crunch of glass, Dave winced and looked down in the pale darkness before hurrying up after the sound of metal being wrenched.

More meandering in darkness with muffled thuds of shoes meeting tacky carpet of what could have been the reception area, his feet met pavement again and he found himself at an abandon hollow area of what could be a courtyard. The building towered all around the empty large pool that dominated the area.

Gordon was already standing at the very edge of the courtyard, a worn-out football - mostly chewed - was in his hand. He tossed it across to the other side, a wide tall arc over the pool.

Three of his dogs scampered after, one remained and decided to lay down right by his feet.

Chase as always moved to a corner close to Gordon, crossing his arms.

"Interesting place…" Dave commented cautiously when he got closer to the siblings.

"It's a family side hobby of a sort," Gordon admitted. "Houston has nice abandoned places all around. Finding the goods ones are sort of like an… adventure."

He blinked at that, then was reminded the many modern black and white photos Cara hung at their apartment were those of abandoned places like this one. He wondered if Gordon gave her tips in finding locations like these, though he doubted a man like him had spare time to wander around Houston.

Chase though… being a bike courier fit the bill. Made sense, she was closer to him after all. He would be the one who would bring her to these places so she could take those photos.

Gordon seemed to be more of a constant visitor, a doctor at first than family to be honest, and he often visited when he was out and busy. He only knew his visits because Patrick left a distinct mark on the apartment. Unless Cara somehow decided to pour hours into cooking, home-cooked food was the man's signature. The best actually.

"You wanted to know something from us," a gravelly voice cut into his thoughts.

"Y-yeah," the EMT breathed out before he slowly paced around. "First off, who are you?" he demanded at them. "How did you manage to learn all of this?"

Where did you get all of this?

Chase glared coldly at him, unperturbed at the demands before he dragged his eyes back onto Gordon. A silent communication between them, they looked back at him.

"For now, Chase Kendrick."

He opened his mouth.

"But that's not what you're asking, are you?" Chase huffed. "My real name, let's say it's Alex Mercer."

The man that stood at the center of the Outbreak. The man who was behind the deaths of millions. The man Dana A. Mercer have for a brother. Of course, it would explain where they knew to dig for all the information in the files.

But that man died at Penn Station, shot down, point blank when he released the virus.

How is he alive? If not guns, then the virus that swept the station should've finished him.

A shiver ran down his spine.

"I know what you're thinking. You're thinking I'm the same Alex J. Mercer." Chase gave a cold wry smile as he stood there, arms crossed. "But no, no I wouldn't say that's correct at all. His body just happened to be the one that… the virus could manifest."

"That's the part I don't understand!" Dave countered frankly. He paused for a moment there, appreciating the irony. "The way I've read about Blacklight, you make it sound like, it's like…" Dave faltered. "A comic book movie about that super w-who got infected with some alien parasite. A… a symbiote."

Perhaps Gordon wasn't wrong to make jokes of parasitic aliens. But still… it was hard to swallow the fact that whoever in front of him was not just a self-deluded man who believed he really died, reborn as another being.

Was he dealing with a man who believed he somehow came to existence due to the man Alex Mercer, or was he dealing with Alex Mercer believing to be someone else? The latter didn't quite add up, he admitted, simply because Chase held no resemblance to the man. It was more likely the other way around.

But he did share some sibling trait with Cara in his features. Maybe he underwent some operation or whatever.

Maybe Dana had some long-lost brother! He didn't know! Dave massaged through his hair, tugging the strands at their roots.

He didn't know anything about them, and when he did… it was a bunch of lies.

"You could say," Chase… or Alex snorted and looked away. "Except I'm the parasite that crawled into a freshly made corpse. Not a living man, not a dying man, but a dead one that's been shot so many times in the chest." There was a vicious bitterness in his tone that surprised him.

Seriously, this was comic book bullshit right here! The fact they've built an entire hard drive with a one-inch book of conspiracy and the infection showed how much these people put effort behind the idea. The worst thing was, it was solid enough.

And the thought terrified him. But this? Virus as symbiotic being. With the body of Dana A. Mercer's - Cara's brother, the infamous biological terrorist Alex Mercer as the host.

Only the host has to be alive, continue in being alive because a virus could only infect a living cell! This was a different matter altogether.

"No, no, you're misunderstanding," Dave protested. "You're saying a disease, a virus can do that."

Chase frowned and turned to look back, eyes narrowing down on him sharply. "Is this what you meant when you asked for clarification?" Harshness laced into his tone.

"The medicals records," the EMT quickly recounted in defense. "I understand a disease can kill people by mutating them, drive them to madness. I understand it can make human stronger if it succeeded what it was intended for. Gene therapy is a thing. But… not in the way you guys described it. You speak as if the disease can control people. Can be…"

"Become something more than just a disease?" Patrick finished for him. "Or someone. You said it yourself, symbiotic. But even then, it has gone beyond that."

Dave hesitated at that. Gordon just stared eerily at him with his bright green eyes.

Luminous. Like cat's, mirrors in their iris. Chase also shared this unnatural trait considering his piercing blue eyes. He had thought they were contacts at first since Cara enjoyed changing her eyes colors, but he knew better now.

"Like it or not, Dave. It can do that. How… that's something the scientists had a hard time figuring out. A true scientist though would accept the possibility and find the means to explain it. After all, facts can change when proven otherwise."

"Still." Dave breathed in and looked up to the night sky. Barely any stars could be seen from all the city lights.

He couldn't understand. Perhaps because he didn't know how it was possible. Perhaps he was looking at this wrong.

Greene. It all began with Greene. Cara always went on and on about her in the hard drive. She was the being who connected them all in more ways than not. The mother of monsters. She, her body, somehow made Redlight into what was known publicly as the Mercer Virus. That killed millions. That swept the street of Manhattan with an untold amount of devastation.

A virus that worked well in monkeys somehow became something deadlier, dangerous, monstrous inside the body of this woman.

Somehow made a nineteen years old girl into a monster. A human girl the reason for all fucked up mistakes.

"Elizabeth Greene," he continued. "Who - no, what was she?"

"A manifestation of the disease," Patrick answered emptily. "A face of the virus. To be correct, its first perfect host. An example of evolution. A disease that has become… something and not just a virus anymore."

"Quit the poetic, Pariah," Chase snorted.

There was a shot of bitterness that flashed over Patrick's face.

"She was an eighteen years old girl, caught up in an experiment that amounted to failure. Just as the Hope's files say, Dave," the older man finished glumly. "What's left of the human being Elizabeth Greene disappeared when the virus took over the shell. Regardless, they were - she was... my mother."

He froze and squinted his eyes at that.

Gordon's hair was a far cry from the red auburn hair of the fifty-five years old unaging college girl with dead green eyes. He would have described it as a light ash brown color, but under bright light, the thin buzz cut hair could be mistaken as sandy blonde. He remembered streaks of grey could be seen underneath the beany, he was by no means immune to aging unlike Elizabeth Greene.

Now that he looked at him properly, he did share his mother's eyes. His face, particularly his cheeks, nose, and chin also shared some similarity.

Patrick laughed at the expression he received. "I'm just complicating things, aren't I? I'm not making a lot of sense."

"I…" Dave faltered then started to pace around before he turned sharply and faced them again. "Okay, let me word it this way. This rabid, tumor-happy disease basically turned a girl into that. Into a carrier with no typical symptoms of other infectees."

Pick, she was either asymptomatic or she was just as affected by the virus. They were pointing out the latter, but he couldn't believe it. The girl looked fine if she weren't mentally altered from the infection when anyone else was reduced into rabidness and excessive mutation!

It behaved like a different disease when it came to her.

"Redlight is a super virus, remember." Chase's harsh voice cut in. "It's a virus that can churn different strains so easily. Its effect is... variable, it beats the cold flu in terms of mutation, infectiousness, and mortality rate," he answered calmly.

"Even different strains of the cold flu express the same traits and symptoms," Dave interjected. "What I'm saying I'm supposed to believe this girl - your mother-" he pointed at Gordon. "-had the same disease that made everyone else into... walking corpses!"

"Redlight's mutation, Dave." Patrick reminded calmly. "In some way, you could argue each person it infects has a unique strain considering it not only mutates the cells but its own RNAs during the infection. Each person had different strains because everyone is unique. But they all ended up the same because all didn't fit the bill. This was the virus intentionally made for making enhanced human beings," he said. "It didn't work out as it intended to for the majority, but for my mother? She hit that lucky ticket."

Dave sighed and pulled out a packet of cigarettes, popping one stick into his mouth before he lit it.

"So this girl is that one case that succeeded," he said resignedly.

The fact she didn't age was one proof of that. The pictures of Elizabeth Greene in Hope's articles would not let him deny that. Except the nagging feeling that something didn't quite fit made him hesitate.

"Sort of, a step forward." Gordon shrugged. "But at the cost of her humanity."

"Yeah… that's the other thing I'm wondering." Dave gave a critical eye at them as smokes slid from his mouth. "In my eyes, all I see is just a mentally altered girl, a victim of the disease, but no less human."

The brothers briefly glanced at each other.

"The Manhattans would disagree with you," Chase replied quietly.

"I recall the New Yorkers blamed you for all the deaths of Manhattan," the EMT retorted back.

Chase narrowed his eyes at that.

"And it's easy to paint someone less human when that said person is behind the crisis and panics," Dave muttered.

There was a soft laughter, more of a hitching of breath. Gordon looked at him, highly amused. "I suppose you won't take you have to be there as a good excuse."

"Look, I understand people demonizing. God knows I dealt with some fucked up bullshit by drunk bastards who like cutting people's future short," the EMT said then paused, he shook his head in frustration.

"Do you even read the records?" Chase snapped. "Those infecteds are not like what you deal in your hospital. Their brains, their DNA that made who they were, what they were were long gone when the virus finished. There's no one there in those infecteds."

"Even Greene?" Dave replied calmly, lit cigarette in hand jabbing at their direction. "Her brain is that of a healthy human being if it weren't for the abnormal readings. Your records, Gordon," he pointed out quickly. "I can't say the same with her. She's not like someone who had Huntington's disease or violent mutation in her brain. And even then..." he faltered.

Dealing with those whose brain cells had deteriorated, becoming less of a person and more… more like a violent animal and then to a vegetable, it wouldn't be right to say they were no longer human. Wasn't that what it meant to lose their humanity?

He worked with these people, and though they were days he thought he would rather eat a gun than have a disorder and a disease that would take his mind and his existence as a person, he knew not to treat and see these people anything less than human. For the ones who loved them, for respect of who they were (no matter how much bad mistakes they made in their life), and for decency sake.

Granted, Dave knew he was being too philosophical in a workplace where it was just do or die. The latter in which the patient's life on the line.

Those New Yorkers, those infecteds, all he saw were the greatest injustice and tragedy in US history. They may be dead in the mind, but he couldn't deny how they were executed in cold-blooded. Even people, who hadn't even developed the disease into latter stages were shot down like some fucking animals. There was practicality that he could concede, and then there was outright overkilling right there.

Elizabeth Greene wasn't a being whose body was lost to the disease like those with tumorous growth and cancers all over their body. He couldn't even say her mind was all gone unlike other symptoms of the infectees.

And these two… these two put her at fault behind the Manhattan's incident. How?

"In a perfect world, Dave. My mother would have been taken in, put into containment for recovery, not experiment. She wouldn't be seen anything less by others." Patrick smiled sadly at him then looked at Chase. "I can see why your sister like this guy a lot now."

Chase snorted. "I hate to break whatever world you lived in, Dave. But that world you live in-" He shook his head disdainfully. "-cannot survive and had died for the Manhattans on that very year she decided to pull Hope all over again."

Because of what she is.

"Hope was infected by the military, not by her," Dave shot back. "The report say she was in containment! She couldn-"

Chase gave a snarl of frustration. "The virus escaped."

"There's a difference between the virus escaping and blaming a victim of an experiment. This is just a military fuck up… not some-" he faltered and stepped back when his form flickered.

Black-red thick tendrils released from their fold and reweaving back to an immaculate man.

A very familiar dead man. Gone were the platinum blond and the weathered skin of Houston's sunlight. Instead, sickly white skin and sleek matted black hair, with hood, jacket and all. The fading, worn out jeans and white running shoes replaced by the dark long well-fitted jeans and expensive leather business shoes. The face of the monster behind Manhattan's Outbreak was glaring furiously at Dave, marching towards him.

Only Gordon quickly moved between them and put an arm on his brother's shoulder.

He heard dirt scraped against the ground and he blinked in surprise at Gordon's soles being dragged over the pavement only to stop as two men struggled.

Alex Mercer glared at the man who blocked his way. A hand gripping tightly by the shoulder, whole arm trying to pull him back and… were those black veins spreading from Gordon's hand? But he spoke, quite coldly. "This is what Elizabeth Greene did when I first met her."

He backhanded.

Dave felt the whoosh, the brush of air when a body slammed into the concrete wall opposite of the courtyard. The clattering of debris, the dust alive in the air, he blinked rapidly, realizing then it was Patrick Gordon who had flown past him.

Alex glared at the EMT but winced though and clutched the shoulder that was gripped, the black vein-like web protruding from the black leather of his jacket. He brought his hand back away from it only to have the thing growing from his hand as well. A twitch and a flash of annoyance passed over Alex's face.

He ignored it when Dave just stared there, unblinkingly, trying again to comprehend. A part of him screamed to run, run as far away from him but he stood there, his heartbeat thumping loudly in his ears.

"She was a lot like us," Alex told him in the same cold fury that gripped him as the sound of debris settled. "The first kind in a way." He then showed his shaking hand, that thing more like roots gripping and clinging tightly onto him. "This is her progeny."

Arm flickered, tendrils weaving and unweaving but it remained constant and growing.

"She's the reason behind monsters being real, she's the reason those people you read about are bloated with cancers and tumors. She's the reason behind Manhattan." He stopped himself quickly. "She had infected everything she touched, spreading… madness."

Blurry videos came to mind, of the red hell zone of Manhattan. A pixelated woman reaching out, seeming to pet a ginormous pink… gorilla-ape-thing.

A mother who was wiping her child's cheeks then next settling the child into a red pustule growing out of the building; a mother putting her children in a cradle.

A woman who made cameras clattered to the ground when her attention turned towards those who watched her. A woman who was seen backhanding a car into a military helicopter.

The pixelated urban legend of the plague maiden thought to be written by someone heavily afflicted by the virus, influencing their mind and sight as their world crashed around them.

Her body the deepest black of darkness,

A window of some underworld.

Her pale hands would guide you into a red dream.

A blissful nightmare.

A metaphor for the virus that swept Manhattan. But it wasn't a metaphor, wasn't it? That was Elizabeth Greene.

"She's the reason… Dana went through hell."

Dave flinched, recalling the reports. Critical. Medical Anomaly. Comatose. No internal bleeding or damage. Jane Doe. A body cut from many surgeries. A body bruised from many needles needing samples. A body that was dying from the changes. Changes that wasn't killing her, but making her into something.

That was Dana's body. That was Redlight. Was that what she was going to become? A monster. Those photos… those grotesque Hunters, those snake-like Hydras, those bloated Walkers. They were people and they were real. That monsters exist, could exist because of this virus.

Alex's cold blue eyes turned towards him. "Do you understand now? Do you understand why she's behind Manhattan incident?"

His mouth felt dry and all he could say was a hoarse croak, cigarette dropped onto the floor, forgotten.

"That's the virus?" Dave stared at the black throbbing vein.

Alex nodded slowly.

The loud scrape of shoes against pavement, footsteps thud and echoed in the courtyard. It settled when it stood two paces away from him.

"You could have asked: Can I borrow you?" drawled Patrick as he brushed his coat from the debris. "Really, this is less of convincing and more of pants-crappifying him into believing."

Mercer rolled his eyes. "Get this thing out of me." He gestured his hand and shoulder.

Patrick walked up to him and took the palm that was offered to him. Dave watched in horrified fascination as the black-vein receding into Gordon's hand. Another grip on the shoulder also did the same.

"Why did she do it then?"

Both turned to look at him. The older man gave a pitying look before he stepped away, giving space that Mercer was prone to grumble when invaded.

"She was a lot like you, right?" He pointed out weakly.

"Sometimes Dave, being the first example doesn't mean she was a perfect example," Gordon told him with a wry smile. "She was… a prototype. And we are the latter model. That's one way to look at it." He laughed and glanced at Alex.

There was only an exhale of annoyance from Mercer when he briefly covered his face with his hand. "You can look at this in many ways," he said slowly. "Greene was killed in the process of what the virus had done to her. You can say the virus merged with its host and became something else entirely."

There was a certain sense of surrealism when seeing the face of the terrorist, when knowing Chase and how he refused to talk. He would rather ignore his existence, but here he was spilling the tale of Elizabeth Greene. Dave stared at him oddly and a thought suddenly struck him.

His body just happened to be the one that… the virus could manifest.

A dead one that's been shot so many times in the chest.

"You can say both explanations aren't mutually exclusive," Mercer continued grimly. "What doesn't change is that she's… she became something less of a human."

Less of a human… The tendrils, the inhuman strength.

"She couldn't be reason with and she couldn't be stopped."

A grown man tossed straight through fifty feet of air and crashed into concrete, leaving a large crack of a crater in place.

"There's a big difference between us, her and human beings," Patrick explained. "Would the thought of the virus wanting to infect scare you?"

Except wanting, needing, requiring has a whole different connotation.

"A virus isn't a living being," Dave pointed out slowly, his head still wrapping around who… and what the man before him really was.

"But we are," Alex added quietly.

And she was.

Frankenstein, the name of a monster finally came into his mind. Blacklight reanimating a corpse of its creator, Alex Mercer. Whatever process Greene went through that made her immortal, saved the body of Alex Mercer from complete cellular death but just as Greene was gone, so was the terrorist that killed millions - no, thousands at Penn Station.

"It's a very intricate part of our being," Gordon said this slowly. "Just as human being wants to reproduce to continue existence, so does the virus… through infection. Humans follow their own nature. She followed hers. It's simple as that."

"So you're saying your mother turned Manhattan into a hellhole because she wanted to infect?!"

Untold amount of death, more than a million, all dead and gone because of this one… girl?

They both stared at him, undisturbed by his reaction. "Yes." The older man nodded cheerily. "That was my hippy mother deciding to spread the love!" He waved at the air, producing imaginary rainbows.

"And what about you two?" he demanded.

Alex only glowered. Patrick just smiled mildly. Their silence unnerving.

"There's no point lying about it." Mercer finally broke the stifling tension between them. He turned away slightly, his eyes glancing at Gordon's calm and collected dog who still laid on the same very spot where Gordon was, hardly disturbed by the previous scuffle.

Sasquatch gave an inquiring whine before her gaze fell back on her children still playing tug of war and tag all rolled in one using the football.

Dave opened and closed his mouth repeatedly. He then grimaced and looked down onto the ground, staring at the crushed lit cigarette. He must have stepped on it during his pacing.

"You guys want - have some need to infect?"

Gordon sighed. "I mean, really, you make it sound so dirty. Like," His voice turned cheesy as he exaggerated. "The other day, I saw Martha and I totally want to make a Walker out of her!"

Alex shot an annoyed glare at Gordon.

"Okay, okay. I'll stop." The older man raised his hands in peace then turned back towards him. "Look at it this way, Dave," Gordon said in a gentle tone. "There are some humans who follow the rule of nature. And some who don't. It's the same as us. We don't deny that we share the same nature, but we don't follow it… at least to a destructive level in the way she did."

Isn't that confessing you turn people into zombies regardless? Or eat them… Or wanting to but only as a hobby or whatever. Dave only looked at them, shaking his head as his shaking hands brushed through his hair. He couldn't believe he was hearing this.

"Cara, Cara… she's one of you. Right?" His breathing turned rapid.

Alex's eyes narrowed at that.

"She's infected with this virus. This virus that makes people into monsters." His voice turning frantic.

The thought of a virus that could do that, that could make monsters and kill millions of Manhattans sitting inside the woman that has been his lover for the past few years, it terrified him. It made him feel… sick.

"I stopped the progress. I am my mother's son after all," Gordon said quietly.

He looked at the man sharply, his gaze earnest and desperate. "Couldn't you get rid of it?"

Patrick only sighed, and a look settled onto his face with a grimace. "I sometimes think I should have wiped every existent of the virus, even at the cost of holes in memories, in her sense of self. Even her body's health. She would recover, she would feel no different really," he admitted. "I could have done it."

The older man leaned back and gazed at the sky, exhaling.

"Dana went through a lot of changes, she was in the last stages of infection. A point of no return. Her cells mangled by Redlight. To undo the damages, I would need to rip those changes out of her, but even then, it would only leave shattered DNA here and there, and not all would survive and heal properly," he confessed. "A lot to recover from especially in a critical condition. That was how much it modified her. So I did the next best thing."

Gordon stood still and stared at him with an unnerving dazed look. "I made her admit those changes."

Dave blinked and swallowed.

"I changed those that would do her more harm, undid those that were capable of recovering quickly and stopped the chain of progression. Her brain may be touched here and there, but thankfully… Redlight had to contend with another virus before her brain was totally gone. The cure virus administered did something at least." He looked at Mercer and nodded at him.

"But not enough," Alex said quietly.

"Yeah," Patrick admitted solemnly. "There's no conventional cure for Redlight. Frankly, what I did was a quick and dirty way to deal with the virus, but it was that or all for nothing."

"How is she not contagious?" Dave said quietly.

"It's latent like I said. So it would be a bit different with her," the older man explained. "The war she went through forced the virus to change, something less harmful at least. Slightly different traits than its mother. Even though a person can carry the genetic changes and the virus within them, it doesn't mean other cells share it not unless the virus was actively infecting, or… they somehow inherit the changes." Patrick then chuckled morbidly when he added, "You wouldn't be able to catch it unless you somehow managed to have her cells survive… and grow in you."

"David," Alex called out to him grimly with no trace of pity on his face. "We wouldn't let you stay with her if it would mean you'll be infected as well."

"Oh yes, definitely," Patrick agreed. "That's the last thing we need when all we want is to live our lives in peace."

"I…" Dave only exhaled out heavily.

He was overblowing it, his blood tests showed no trace of the virus after all. When it came to diagnosing Redlight or some variation, he was sure cases of false negatives were highly unlikely due to its nature. Unless… he was some anomaly, but what are the chances of that happening? Redlight was hardly a subtle virus and it acted very quickly.

But for Cara, latency might just be part of the virus cycle and depending on the virus, it could actually take years before it comes back again. Those were rare though, and he wasn't sure when it came to Cara's strain. It took two years for Redlight to strike. With Manhattan, he wasn't sure how long the virus been out in the street before quarantine came down. He blamed the lack of report and misinformation.

"What's stopping the virus from developing?" Dave pointed out. "From what I noticed, Cara doesn't take any drugs, nor is she on any gene therapy treatment."

"We don't need drugs or treatments when I can practically control the disease." Gordon shrugged.

"So... you're what's keeping Cara from… from-"

"Just say it," Alex snarled and he winced back.

"I meant from becoming one of you," Dave said carefully. "Something like you," he corrected.

"Dave, we're an exception not the rule when it comes to… Runners," Gordon reminded gravely. "There's nothing wrong with us simply because we were lucky enough. We're flukes and we don't want to gamble with those chances for more than just the obvious reasons. It's why she's the way she is, else I would have made that leap you're thinking about. Besides," He rolled his eyes.

"It touches a whole can of worm on individuality and not everyone deals with it nicely… especially when it comes to Redlight. And also because this guy here would kill me," Patrick added quickly and pointed at his brother.

Alex just scowled in the background. "I wouldn't call the idea of making a human into a being with a need to infect a good one," he pointed out quietly, his cold blue eyes resting on the EMT.

Yeah… that. Dave looked away, grimacing.

"That's another reason," Gordon conceded. "All other examples, my mother… my sisters."

There are more? He looked up quickly at the mentioning. Were the other smaller outbreaks in the book were because of them?

"They were human." The older man raised his hands in resign at that. "They had Redlight though, so it might be different with her. But like I said, we didn't want to take the chances. We didn't want to force her to bear unnecessary changes. And she's… already struggling dealing with the ones she has."

"What do you mean by that?" Dave said sharply.

Patrick made an awkward expression and slowly turned to look at his brother. Alex just shook his head briskly.

"Well?!" he demanded at that.

"That question… is up to her to answer it," the older man said resignedly.

Jaws tightened from frustration, the EMT just glared. "Why?"

Patrick raised an eyebrow at him. "Why what?"

"Why go through all this length? You're not… you're not her sibling. You're not Alex Mercer." He turned to stare at Alex. "But you call yourself that. You look like him." If that is his true form. "You all pretend you're… family."

The sister of the bioterrorist that unleashed a devastating virus. The being that rose from the corpse of its creator, taking the man's face, his identity for himself. Not to mention, the son of the mother who made Manhattan hell. No doubt there was probably a story behind that.

"You're taking care of this man's sister." He looked at them pointedly. "Why?"

These two they've been there for her long before him. From what he could tell, since they weren't even siblings at all technically, why go above and beyond for one woman?

Patrick just gave a wry chuckle at that question before he looked at his brother expectedly.

Alex didn't meet his gaze. He only stared at Dave, his glaring expression surprisingly soften. "Because she deserves better, Dave."

---

When she moved to Houston, she wasn't willing to give up on Manhattan. Her friends, she missed them dearly. There were all she had, but no doubt it was better off for them knowing she was dead. She didn't want to know how they would feel in being friends with the sister of Alex Mercer that made their home into hell.

She wanted answers, she wanted to understand how fucked up shit like this could happen. She wanted people to know, she wanted to reveal the assholes behind the hundreds, thousands, millions being miserable and dead.

She wanted to right all the wrongs.

But she couldn't.

"You can either have what - whatever we have here. Or we risk this all… but for what?"

Either she lived her life forever running, or she put it all behind her and move on.

The latter she wasn't quite ready to let go. Not at first. She knew she had enough to get the ball rolling, and she shouldn't be too greedy about finding out more. Because when the whole world believed your brother was guilty, who would give a shit about his sister who was talking about conspiracy and mass genocide virus.

She could imagine the accusations, the burning comments.

You're just shifting the blame away from your brother.

She promised herself never to do that ever again, never to excuse his actions, not after what he had done.

When the 2008 Outbreak happened, mobs and protest already sprung out from Martial Law instating on Manhattan. Arguments of the government not putting enough effort in separating the non-infected from the infected and getting them out of the hell zone.

Give them clearance!

After that, massive human rights violation that occurred during the chaos, debates on Gentek's innocence, the incompetency of the government.

All of that, she could have set it alight by dropping the bomb. But it wasn't guaranteed her piece of truth would get out, or that people would listen. People were that angry. A million and more had died from the terrorist attack, after all. The number of casualties was compared to major ethnic cleansings and war in history. The fact a nuclear bomb was launched was icing on the cake. Reading all the hate-crime, the so-called vigilante beating up people supposedly affiliated with the overseas terrorists her brother wanted to give the virus to or even acted under! It was 9/11 all over again.

She hated it. She wanted to be amongst the crowds, amongst the protest, arguing with those fucking assholes who thought they could hide behind their opinion.

Except you're the sister of the bioterrorist.

Those crowds out there would rather beat her to death, or call her delusional, or worse. People didn't want to understand, too scared, too angry. They just wanted someone to pay for what happened to Manhattan.

She did what she could, released her piece in the depth of the internet, hidden and protected behind internet anonymity.

After that, she moved on. She had to. She could afford it, so she did. She built back her life, met new people, smiled and lied, had fun, dated for a while. Close another chapter in her life. Except it came crashing down with the incident. Why fucking bother? That was what she got for building ties, for listening to that pretentious son of Greene. The people she met, strangers again the next day. Less questions asked that way.

She never hated her life more until that moment.

She couldn't do the things she wanted. She couldn't build her own fucking life right. She couldn't do anything right. So she shut the world away.

She would've been better off slamming the door on her asshole brother when he came asking for help seven years ago, better off not calling him, better off without him if this was the trouble she gets for trying to right all the wrongs.

Alone. She was better off alone.

A part of her disagreed. A part that misses something, something that she tried not to think about and deny. Deny for Alex's sake because she could see the guilt in his face, blaming himself for the problems she was facing.

It was a stirring sense of something that felt right, something that was gone and she longed for it. She felt empty, incomplete and homesick.

Each time she woke back up from her episode, it felt like waking up from a pleasant dream. Relieved, but that feeling was momentarily when she realized the horror of what could've happened, what she had done.

It was like waking up in the hospital all over again.

She was scared. Scared there was a part of her that she could reason with preferred the times when dreams were red with a loving presence that told her everything was going to be alright, that she was not alone now and never will be.

In the arms of a monster that had hunted hundreds with those hands of his, who wore the face of her brother, she felt safe. She felt safe and complete, that this was how it should have been in a sick and twisted sort of way.

That the red dream promised.

She couldn't help but feel she was being used by some grand unseen nature. Alex only took her taciturn behavior in stride… but she never revealed her suspicion. She rather not, knowing how he would react, would only make him sick and worried.

Patrick was resigned at her decision.

She went on with her life though never bothered meeting people ever again but with David, she learned she could forget. The lies in her mouth didn't feel so obvious. That she could be Cara Kendrick and put Dana Mercer behind. Except she knew she couldn't, she shouldn't. Whether it would be through her blanked-out episodes or through the complication the future would bring, she knew it wouldn't last.

She just didn't trust herself enough with promising David the life he wished for both of them. A life where she was a part of his family, where she spoiled his dorky younger relatives, where she got along with the women of his household, where she challenged the guys and beat them in a bet. It balked her that this was David's world she was entering in.

A knock jarred her awake, she blinked blearily at the soft sunrise spilling into the open space living room. Yawning, she looked down at the golden retriever laying on top of her.

"Hey, boy," she whispered quietly and smiled.

He woofed and hopped off her, his tail wagging when he hurried to the entrance. She frowned at this and quickly got up, grabbing the leash resting on the hook on the wall then reaching out to unlock the many locks that were no doubt installed in the days Gordon lived in this safehouse. She pulled the heavy door opened then stepped back at the tousled-haired David leaning outside the doorway, blocked off by the heavy set of steels.

She sucked in her breath sharply then narrowed her eyes at him. "You look like you didn't have any sleep."

The clicks of nails, Snowflake panted happily at the sight of the familiar human. Dave gave a weak smile, he opened and closed his mouth but just stared at her, or through her.

It was unnerving, an unfamiliar uncharted territory that she didn't like.

"The things you've told me, about being brought up with a drunk alcoholic mother," he began frantically as a hand grasped and rested on one of the steel bars. "Graduating at NYU, the things you like, they were true?"

She nodded.

"So what did you lie?" His brown eyes looked at her confusedly.

She avoided his gaze, her eyes on her bright red sneakers, sort of laughing under her breath.

Against her better judgment, she had mixed a whole lot of truth with her lies. She was used to hustling, she had created many IDs back in the days before Alex contacted her. She managed to steal a lot from benefits and conning certain people, even involved in online scamming.

This time, she was not making a whole different persona. It was easier to keep track of the lies. In fact, Cara was just as much as Dana, minus her brother. Cara had brothers. Dana had… she had her friends, but not her family.

Cara got to right all the wrongs in her life. She had her family stuck through with her for her whole life. She didn't have the Outbreak screwing up everything. She managed to get a proper job that was not hustling.

Dana didn't.

"Not a lot. I didn't know Gordon until… six years ago," she confessed. "I'm a troubled girl considering I owe a lot of money or favors to people you wouldn't want to know during my college days. I'm not an upstanding citizen as you like to think I am. But who I was… is dead to the world. That's how I managed to stick around."

"And Alex?"

She swallowed and briskly unlocked the last door with a rattling of keys before she stepped back, widening the door for him to enter.

He slowly did but never took his seat back on the couch. Jesus, it was like having conversations with an amnesiac Alex all over again.

"He-he told you?" She looked up after closing the door behind him, putting her hands together.

"Yeah. But I feel like I'm not getting some full story here," David said quietly.

She sighed. "That's Alex's story to tell and I've told you my part. Just a gal who thought she was doing good, clearing her brother's name, caught in the wrong place at the wrong time," she said quietly. "Alex…"

Alex, the other brother? Alex, the monster? Alex, the Blacklight? She wanted to roll her eyes at the last bit.

"Chase," she corrected herself, it was easier that way. "Chase didn't know back then, he thought he was my brother. I thought so too. For all we knew, he was caught up in some sick experiment that left him amnesiac and…" a monster. "Not some accidental reanimation caused by the virus my brother released onto the ground."

She snorted and rubbed her other arm absentmindedly. "He helped me, kept me from being captured by those people I've told you about."

She looked at him and Dave gave only an apologetic look, a thing he did when he wanted to do something nice. He just didn't know how and knew he shouldn't.

"He saved my life when I was going to be just another infected. He stayed by my side throughout all the hardship I've faced. He's the reason I'm alive, Dave. He did more than my brother ever did in my entire life."

She smiled at him reassuringly. "Chase is a good guy, just… didn't know better back then."

Dana hoped to God that David didn't pursue any question behind Alex and the Monster of Manhattan. The Monster of Manhattan was nothing more than an urban myth, and she rather have it left that way.

It was a conversation she knew she didn't know how to handle. Who would in their sane mind defend and excuse the actions of murdering and outright mutilating people, even if there were the people behind the whole Manhattan debacle.

"Okay," Dave nodded and exhaled heavily at that. "I guess I can get behind the idea of having a monster family as in-laws."

Dana stopped and stared, giving him an odd look no doubt and wondering what he said was a slip of words or just a product of a sleep-deprived mind. Probably both considering his current state. She felt her smile widened as she looked at him, her eyes watering as her chest shook then she laughed. He joined her, albeit weakly.

"Christ, Dave. Why would you want to do that?" She grinned.

The man only stared, his brown eyes weary, circles shadowed under them. "I've talked to… your brothers. About, about a lot of things. Greene. Hope. Manhattan. And you." He looked at her hands holding her bared arms to herself. "I'm still wondering how you all… managed to stick together."

"With Alex, I had no one and I didn't mind." She shrugged. "With Gordon… the man has a way to show he's helping." She shook her head as a look of frustration pass over her face.

"They said…" Dave hesitated and breathed in deeply. "They said you have to deal with whatever Greene did to you. I've... never noticed."

"I'm just good at hiding." She smiled wryly then frowned. "I… guess you want an explanation." Dana sighed when he waited silently.

"I blank out, Dave," she confessed then turned around, pacing slowly about the room restlessly before she stopped and glanced back at him. "Patrick says it's when I reach past the good stress threshold and never release it, that's when a part of me that Greene left in me comes out. It's like… sleepwalking," she said, recalling the words of a certain old man. "Except I would be fully awake then the next, I would wake up in middle of nowhere, not knowing how much time past, or what I did." She inhaled sharply as her eyes blinked rapidly. "If it weren't for Alex, fuck how many people I would've hurt."

During those times, she was thankful for his constant hovering presence. Alex was always close by, always there to catch her, to stop her. Always there even after she pushed him aside. Once, she would have thought his vigilance over her was off-putting, unnerving even. They still were.

But they were reassuring as well, she wondered at times if this was a bad thing.

David held back an inner wince. Some part of her regretted saying the last bit, but he needed to know.

She turned her darkened gaze on him, "You know what Runners are, what they do?"

"They infect," he said quietly.

"Greene never saw what she did as wrong. I don't think she was able to comprehend human morality. To her… to Runners, family is everything."

"H-how did you know this?"

She sucked in her breath. "The Hive. It's a telepathic link that only infecteds are connected to. While I was in a coma, I was lost in this web of… links." Dana closed her eyes but a small whine nudged her and she smiled down at the lolling golden retriever sitting at her knees.

She brushed Snowflake's head absentmindedly.

"When I came out of coma, a part of me changed. A part of me that misses the dreams I had. That part of me wants to do what Greene did to Manhattan," she admitted quietly. "Except I don't want to, Dave." She shook her head vigorously. "When I woke up, I didn't know what I was feeling, I didn't understand, I wish I still don't."

He only swallowed deeply at that.

"It's something that rarely happens. But it happens," she admitted bitterly. "So now you know."

At that, he turned around, feet slightly dragged across the ground as he walked up to the couch before settling down onto it. "I could pretend none of this is happening right now," he said with a sigh. "That there's no chance of being together with you won't lead to regret. I… I don't know, me murdered or you disappearing on me without any explanation."

"Dave, I promise you I won't do anything that would result in any of that happening," Dana said, closing the distance between them when she sat down onto the coffee table in front of him.

"That's the last thing I ever want to happen," she added softly. "All I have is a bunch of could in my hands. That there might be a day you have to deal with my fucked-up shit. Or you might have to run as well. But know this, I won't let you face those days alone unless you want me to."

His gaze fell but turned to Snowflake who laid on the floor, chin on paws.

The dog sighed back at him.

"I can't promise that I'm gonna be okay… having to deal with whatever fucked up things come up, but I'm willing," he said. "A part of me wants to leave all of this, but it wouldn't be right. To leave you alone..."

Her expression pensive from worry and concern, Dana shook her head and smiled sadly at that. Knees almost touching, she could pass her hand in between the gap but she stopped herself from doing anything more before him.

"I'm not alone, Dave. I have Alex with me, and… Patrick, he counts as well." She sniffed sharply, a sort of laugh. "I was fine even before you came along, a-and I appreciate the thought. But don't do it because it feels like you owe me this."

"I could be cheesy and say, I just want us to be together regardless, but I don't think that's right," Dave said quietly.

Not after all of this.

Dana said nothing, she didn't know what else to say. She just looked down to the floor with feelings and thoughts over the past, over them stirring around in her head. She couldn't help but compare the days where she reasoned and wondered why Alex would stay with her.

A warm hand settled onto hers, she let him grasp it. A small comfort shared between the two after the days apart.

"Thank you. For telling me all of this," he said and squeezed her hand briefly, determined. "I know my reasons aren't good enough. But nothing, nothing," he repeated as if convincing himself more than them. "Happened to us despite all those problems you have. Like you said, they rarely happen."

Unless you were lying… Dana stared long and hard.

"And what would happen when those days come, Dave? I can't just… hope nothing bad is going to happen to us," she asked. "I mean, knowing my track record in life, that's - that's too much to hope for."

He looked at her then glanced away briefly. "I would probably be a lot more prepared than I am now," he answered quietly.

Apprehension beating rapidly in her heart, she squeezed his hand back and swallowed, her mouth felt dry when she spoke. "I want to be happy with you, Dave. I really do," she said. "I'm just… scared that you would hate me, that I'm gonna make you miserable when you could've been happier."

"Well, that's not up for you to decide how I'm going to live my life. Isn't it?" Dave smiled weakly. "Why else would you tell me all of this for, to push me away? If so, just say it to my face instead of going around with… all of this."

A soft hitch of breath, Dana squeezed her eyes together and hunch over. She laughed softly as she quickly brushed the back of her hand against the corner of her eyes.

"You wanted me to know for a reason," he continued. "And I get it. Hey, Dave… you're gonna spend your life with a girl who's gonna get you killed. Literally. You and I both know that's a fucking exaggeration of our mind. But it's a real possibility. I appreciate the warning," the EMT added drily. "I'm not wrong to assume that you wouldn't have told me, wouldn't be here if there isn't a chance that our future is possible."

Dana just shook her head at his rant. "Dave, you're fucking tired," she said, still smiling her sad little smile. He hated that look, it was a look of defeat.

"Damn right I am," he grumbled. "But I'm not wrong, am I? I had this to think about the whole goddamn fucking week when we could have a goddamn holiday from work and responsibility." He breathed in deeply. "I know you have… Alex and Patrick, and they probably be more help to you than I ever would, but please… don't say I can't handle it."

"You know you're giving up more for me. It isn't fair for you."

He let go of her hand as he glared at her. "Cara, I don't know what else you want from me. I don't know what to give, or what to say. And I'm not sure I can make whatever promise you expect from me."

"I know, I know. I'm sorry." She raised her hands quickly. "I'm not asking you to be… happy or emotionless about all of it." I'm not expecting anything… she wanted to say, but knowing Dave, he would take that as an insult. "I just… I'm just scared," she said slowly.

He breathed heavily but nodded at that. "I'm scared too," he said quietly. "There's a real chance that you guys are being hunted down or worse. That's… that's real fucking frightening and I can't do anything about it. I can't fucking talk to the cops, or whatever authority out there meant to keep me - keep us safe."

"My brother and I are dead to the world," she reminded softly. "We've long… left those days behind."

"I know," Dave said and looked down at his feet. "Like I said, you wouldn't be here… talking to me if you haven't."

Silence fell between the two, David stared then grimaced when he saw her quickly brushing her palm against the corner of her eyes and sniffed heavily. He wanted to say that everything was going to be alright, but he wasn't sure. He wasn't sure that everything was going to be alright, plus Cara would push away any physical contact as she often did when she was upset.

She looked up and saw him looking then nodded vigorously.

"Thank you," she whispered as more tears began to slip down her face, her smile small and her eyes wide. "Thank you, Dave. For understanding."

"You make it sound like I was going to do the worst thing ever imagine," he said.

"Can you blame me?" She stared at him as the smile fell from her face with bitterness. "I'm the sister of the fucking bioterrorist that killed millions. And if I'm not that, I'm… something Greene left for her perfect twisted world. I thought you would be repulsed or worse," she added the last bit softly.

He didn't know whether he should be upset at the thought she expected less from him. The worse thing about it, she wasn't wrong on some part. He was repulsed, he was shocked when learning about who she was… what she was. There were still some things he couldn't understand even after everything was explained, and he was too tired to ask anymore. He just couldn't believe this was the woman he'd been with for two years.

He hesitated but reached out to take her hands. She didn't flinch or resist when he pulled her gently towards him. His arms went around her and Dana sniffed heavily as the silent tears continued to spill.

Maybe they could leave this behind, go back and pretend everything was normal. Move on. There wasn't any other way he could think than this... nor he was sure that it was the right course of action. Pretending everything was normal was just ignoring the crux of the problem, but what could he do? What could they do?

"No more lies, okay," he whispered into her ears. "If you have problems don't… don't just hide it away from me."

She nodded and said something into his shoulder. He took it as a yes or something.

They were going to do this. They were going to try at least, and if it didn't work out, he hoped both of them could walk out with their own life not in pieces.