Disclaimer: Please see earlier chapters.
A relatively short chapter for me, hope you like it as it is a little mixed. Let me know what you think (not that I'm begging here :))
After their 'fishing trip' relations between John and Alec began to thaw as they slowly worked through their many, many issues. It wasn't easy for either of them, however, both of them kept to the unspoken agreement they had made on the boat that whatever was going on with them they were at least going to be civil to each other when others were around and after a while being 'civil' didn't seem like such hard work.
As Molly's due date grew closer, Alec even moved into the house, sleeping on the couch after John found him and a very ticked off Biggs curled up on the porch the morning after Molly had had a bad attack of heartburn and back pain, until one night the light flipped on, causing Alec to fall onto the floor.
"It's time," Ellen said as John helped Molly down the stairs.
Joshua, Max and Cindy, had all arrived at the clinic before the Winchesters had gotten there, not that Alec knew why they had been called, except Billy was standing there looking innocent as Mole and Logan turned up with Sketchy trailing along behind.
Alec sat outside the delivery room as Ellen and Molly went inside until John smacked him round the back of his head and told him to get in there.
Alec stood in the corner of the room as Ellen held Molly's hand, the guilt rising again as Molly screamed in pain, as she told her mother that she couldn't do it. He watched as Ellen stroked her hair, telling Molly that it would be over soon and to push.
Suddenly Molly stopped crying and the wailing began; a high pitched cry that didn't belong to anyone who had walked in the room.
"Do you want to cut the cord?" the midwife asked.
"What?" Alec replied.
"Go on," Ellen said reassuringly, pushing Alec forward until he came face to face with the little pink thing in the midwife's hands.
"Hello there," Alec said quietly after he had cut the cord.
Alec, for once in his life, was lost for words as he watched the midwife hand Molly the baby, as he watched her get acquainted with their child. It took a few minutes until one word came to his mind as he stared at the little yawning face. "Mine?"
A tired Molly smiled at him as she shook her head. "No. Ours'."
Alec, John, and Billy stood at the window looking at the little faces as the others joined them.
"And?" Max asked.
"Ten fingers and ten toes," Alec replied.
"And no tail," Billy added to which John just ruffled the boy's unruly brown hair.
Max looked at Alec. "And?"
Alec gave a little smile. "No, no code."
"Free then," Joshua said.
Alec nodded, "Yeah free."
"So, where is my name sake?" Mole asked. "Got to know who I'm going to be putting straight about things."
Alec turned to the window. "Second row, third one to the right."
They all turned to look in the window, searching for the new addition, finding the little tag that announced to the world 'Baby Girl Winchester.'
"Aimee," Alec said quietly as Joshua slapped Mole on the back. "Baby Mole."
Mole turned to Alec. "You ain't using it, Princess."
Alec grinned. "Too late now to change your mind."
"You were the one that told them they had to use it as a nickname," Logan joked, as Mole's face fell, "What was it you said, 'You went through everyone else's damn name, what the hell is wrong with mine!'"
John smiled at the large transhuman. "Told you to be careful with what you should wish for."
Aimee Winchester moved into her and her mother's temporary home at her grandparents' a few days later, and Max saw the expression on Alec's face as he changed his first diaper. Logan found her sitting outside the house.
"Max, are you all right?"
Max turned round. "Yeah, I'm fine."
"I think they are going to be all right, Max. Alec will cope."
Max nodded. "I know."
"So what is it?" Logan asked tentatively.
Max bit her lip, not answering him.
"Right," Logan said, not wanting to push it.
"I never thought it'd be like this. First you and me, and now..." Max stopped herself for a moment. "How did it get screwed up so much?"
"I don't know, but it is right now, isn't it?"
"Where is the Eye's Only optimism?"
Logan glanced through the window seeing Alec and Molly put their child down for a nap, "It's taken a beating lately, Max, but it is still there."
"Really?"
He nodded. "Things change, Max-the things we always assumed would be true, whether it be the people in our lives or situations we find ourselves in sometimes change in ways we could never imagine. It doesn't mean that they completely disappear, just become different, but it also doesn't mean that something good can't come of it."
"What does that mean?"
"Actually, I'm not sure, Max," he replied. "But I have to believe that somehow, someday everything will turn out all right. I just hope that on that day, whatever the outcome, that you find a way to be truly happy."
"Same goes for you," Max said quietly as Logan left.
The day that Molly moved into her new apartment full time also coincided with Aimee spending her first night in Terminal City. Max found herself standing in Alec's doorway as he panicked, not sure what to do with the screaming child.
"I've changed her diaper, fed her, burped her, but she won't quiet down Maxie. I don't know what else to do," he said, pleading as he bounced the little girl.
"You called Molly?"
Alec shook his head as the baby continued to cry. "No, she'll think I can't do it. She'll never let me have her again."
Max sighed. "No she won't. She was fine about you having the baby tonight."
"Yes she will, and if I call Ellen, she'll tell Molly, and then I'll only ever be able to see Aimee when they're around until she's graduated high school. Oh God, she's going to go to high school someday, Max. What will happen then?"
"Alec, calm down."
"No," Alec said as he worked himself up more and more. "Even if the ordinaries leave all us alone here, Aimee will grow up and go to school like all the other kids, then she'll learn to drive-no Molly can deal with the driving, in a car, not a bike. A big car that she can't fall off or out of or if anything hits it they'll come of worse."
Max smiled. Although it was slightly unsettling seeing him like this, she had to admit it was a little funny. "Are you planning on letting her drive or getting her a tank?"
"What's wrong with getting her a tank?" Alec asked seriously, before stopping. "On second thought, she won't drive. Definitely no driving for her."
"Why not?"
"Because then she'll be able to get to places on her own."
"And that's bad how, exactly?"
"Parties!" Alec said as he began to pace again. "She'll be a teenager and want to go spend time with her friends, and then go to parties, and if she can drive, then what happens if she drinks, because with teenagers, they are into that, aren't they? No, if she wants to go, then she'll need to be picked up, then I'll know what she's doing, because there is no way in hell she is going anywhere in a car alone especially to a place where teenage boys are."
"Right," Max sighed. "Alec, I think you are overreacting here."
"Overreacting, Max? No, I'm not!" he said, suddenly stopping in his tracks, "Oh god, this is payback isn't it? Someone upstairs is getting a huge laugh out of this because there are going to be boys, aren't there?"
"I think that might be a possibility," Max said with a slight smirk on her face. "Unless Aimee's already told you something different."
"Oh hell, no. There will be no boys, because they only think about one thing."
"Do they?"
"This isn't funny, Maxie," Alec said seriously, bouncing the whining child. "No teenage excuse of a male is getting his mitts on my little girl, and don't say they aren't all that bad because I know I was one, and at that age I only thought about one thing, even during missions."
"Only thought about it at that age?" Max asked, though he ignored her question. "What are you planning to do lock her up?"
His face paled. "Oh God, I've got a little girl! I have a daughter, Max! What happens if she goes into heat?"
"Where is this all coming from?" Max asked. "Alec, you're doing okay so far, and she's only a couple of months old, not sixteen."
"Sixteen? Please, tell me that was the first time you went through it. Tell me it was later than the females who were stuck back at base. Tell me that being outside made it happen later," Alec said with a pleading tone to his voice.
"Alec, calm down," Max said. "Because you are not sounding like you right now."
"Think about it, Max. How much do we know about transgenic and ordinary mixes? Even though her mother isn't transgenic. Aimee still might go through it, especially considering how we got her."
"Is this where you try and explain the cat-demon thing again?" Max asked sarcastically.
"Spirit. It was a spirit, Max. It was a cat spirit that possessed her and whammied me with a whole bunch of pheromones," he replied.
"Whatever," Max said, trying to focus back on the screaming child. "Have you tried to call Joshua?"
"No. Why?"
"Gem said that he always can get her to go to sleep."
"Do you think I should?"
Max hung her head in shame. She had slowly retreated from his life since Molly had turned up, and now he was standing in front of her working himself up more and more. As he began to pace again, she began to realise how much he needed her right now.
"Give her to me and call him," she said, taking the baby from his arms.
"He's going to come as soon as he can," Alec said as he came back from calling Joshua. He found Max sitting in on the couch, Aimee asleep in her arms. "How?"
Max shrugged. "I don't know."
"I think she likes you."
Max smiled. "Really? You think so?"
Alec nodded. "Yeah I think she does."
Max, Alec, and Joshua sat on the floor of the baby's room all night, watching Aimee sleep, saying barely a word.
The baby stirred around six, causing Alec to pick her up, letting Aimee settle back down in her father's arms. Max actually began to dose off a little after that, resting her head on Alec's shoulder as he gently rocked the child to sleep.
When Alec went around to Molly's to drop Aimee off, John and Ellen were there finishing moving their daughter in.
Max and Alec stood in the living room as Molly took the baby, leaving them to face John and Ellen.
"Alec, this isn't a good idea," Max whispered.
"Max, please" Alec replied, "I get you don't want to talk, but they need to know. It's time."
"Why?" Max asked.
"You know why," Alec said, "They know he existed Max, at some point they're going to hear the rest of it and its best they hear it from us. You did what you had to, he asked you to and nothing no-one can say is going to change that one fact Max. He asked you to."
John knotted his brow, stopping what he was doing as he noticed the exchange going on in the other corner of the room, "What is going on with you two."
Alec glanced at Max for a second before turning to John. "When we were stuck on the boat, we talked about getting all the big stuff out in the open, and even though you knew, you never asked me about him, about 493. Truth is I don't know much about him, but there is someone else who does."
John and Ellen looked at Max who stood there stoically.
"He was my brother and his name was Ben," she said with purpose, preparing for the worst. "Alec, he didn't tell you about him before because he was protecting... protecting me."
"What do you mean?" Ellen asked.
Max looked at the floor, "Ben well he..."
She took a deep breath and looked directly at John as told them everything.
Max waited for the fallout. John stood up, walking to the window. After a few minutes he spoke. "If you had left him to be picked up, what would they have done to him?"
"You don't want to know," Alec said, "Really, you don't want to know."
"Right," John replied, not saying another word.
Max looked at the ground, feeling the pain again. "When we we're young, back at Manitcore, he made up these stories to explain things. Zack looked out for us, but Ben, he made us feel that we were... loved somehow, that someone out there was watching over us. He made it bearable."
"And then what happened to him?" Ellen asked.
"Something broke him. We left Manitcore, and he broke inside," Max said quietly.
"Getting out of that place screwed up a lot of us," Alec added. "Truth is no one will ever really know."
John nodded, and they sat there in silence for what seemed like hours before he looked at his wife before turning to Max. "I get that it was hard to tell us what happened, Max, but it might be a good idea if you go now."
As they left, Ellen held onto her husband. "John, she did right. She had no choice, and you couldn't have helped him. You didn't know him or Alec existed, so don't do this. We've just put this family back together. Don't tear it apart again and not over a kid you never met and couldn't have helped."
"I should have known about him," John replied. "I should have."
Command was busy. Mole and Biggs were organizing a supply run while Dix was playing with the surveillance equipment that covered the outer walls of Terminal City when he came in.
Mole looked up. "John?"
John nodded his response.
"Alec isn't around at the moment," Biggs said, confused at John's appearance in the heart of Terminal City.
"Not here to see Alec," John replied.
"Then can we help?" Biggs asked.
"Where is she? Where is Max?"
"Max, someone to see you," Mole yelled through her office door.
"Give me a minute," she replied.
The door opened before she had a chance to finish what she was doing, causing her to look up slightly startled. "John? What are you doing here?"
"We need to talk," John said firmly.
She swallowed, not exactly liking his tone as he walked into the office. On sensing her apprehension he sighed. "I'm not here to make a scene. Hell, Max, even without the army out there, I know damn well that you are more than capable of defending yourself."
"Then what are you doing here?"
"Tell me about him. Tell me about your brother."
"I told you. I told you about Ben."
John shook his head, "No you told me what he did, and I know you didn't have a choice. Hell, if I had been in your place, I would have done the same thing. But I need to know what he was like before that. Tell me what he was like before he broke."
She looked away for a second, taking a breath, "Well, Ben, like I said, he was the one who gave us meaning, made the world make sense even though it didn't make sense to him."
"How?" John asked, pulling up a chair.
Max sat there and talked. John didn't say a word. He let her remember all the good things that she had pushed out of her mind about how, when she had the shakes, Ben and Jondy would climb into her bed to make her feel safe, how Ben would tell stories for them all to fall asleep to.
The only time he said anything was to ask questions about what types of stories Ben had told them-were they about monsters and protectors, about the wonderful world that lay just beyond the wall or gates or whatever Manticore had kept them in. When she had said that some of them were, he nodded, to which she asked if they were like the stories that Dean used to tell his little brother, to which he said one word: "Sometimes."
She told him of how it had hurt Ben the most when they had taken their brother, Jack. That he had been the only one to rail against it, how Ben had paid the price when the guards had found him on the roof. How she was never sure but she had always thought that it had been Ben that put the idea in Zack's head about escaping, about what to do if the guards came for her because her shakes had gotten worse because Ben couldn't take loosing her like they had lost Jack.
He listened to how she had blamed herself for his breaking, that if she hadn't gotten the seizures that Zack wouldn't have gotten them all out and Ben would have been whole.
John listened to her tale right to the end he silently stood up and walked to the door. He turned and looked at her. "If he was going to break, he was going to break, and not a damn thing you could have done to stop it, girl. Only thing you could have done for him is end him as soon as you found out what he was doing, and you already did that."
Max started to cry as he left her, turning to face the window as he left her, not too sure what she felt as she sat alone in the small quiet office in the middle of the hub of the bustling Terminal City.