Disclaimer: Nothing's changed. Dark Angel belong to Cameron and consorten. Only the plot is mine.
A/N: Wanted to change the POV for once. I just love Cindy, doesn't take any crap from anyone. But it has been hard going and I hope you forgive me if I didn't quite catch her, I did my best.
It just occurred to me that just as with all my other fics this takes place at some indeterminate time in season two. I usually try to set the scene with a sentence or two, f.ex. the line in chapter 1 about the virus. Not sure if Joshua will make an appearance. I'm not very good at describing absolute innocence.
Another thing is that this is getting very difficult to write. (It doesn't help that I would rather lie at the pool, but then that's what notebooks are for.) I have the layout, as mentioned before, but it is tough going. There is definitely something to be said for summer hiatus.
Dedicated to a good friend of mine who in a very sad way first got me thinking about this story.
Chapter Three: After great pain a formal feeling comes
Two days had passed since Dix had dropped the bombshell that had destroyed the foundations on which Alec and Max had built their fragile lives and Alec had yet to return from wherever he had run to. He hadn't shown up at work or any of his other usual hangouts.
Cindy didn't want to believe it for a second but it seemed as if Alec had bailed. Logan had so persistently supported that theory that Cindy had eventually chucked him out of Max's infirmary room just to shut up his yammering. Then she had told him that if he really wanted to help Max like he always said he did, he should get his ass in gear and find Alec. Not knowing all the particulars, Cindy not being inclined to and Max in no position to enlighten him, he had bitched quite a bit but eventually succumbed to Cindy's superior will and left. Hopefully to at least provide some help.
There was only one good thing to come from this whole disaster in Cindy's opinion. Faced with a Max who had for the first time ever truly lost it, crying as if her world had ended, Cindy had no time to feel uncomfortable around her or to be afraid. Her boo needed her, was falling apart with every minute Alec wasn't by her side, all the old insecurities Manticore and Renfro had indoctrinated into her coming to the fore. Max had always been the one with the plan, whether it was how to save Sketchy's ass from the Russians or a scheme to get in contact with her lost relatives. And yet now she lay there, completely unable and unwilling to do anything but fall apart.
"It's my fault. It's all my fault." Max muttered only half asleep. Cindy repressed her first instinct which was to tell her to stop being a fool, in favour of finding out what Max was trying to convince herself of. She was getting stuck somewhere and Cindy was going to help her out.
"What d'ya mean, sweetie?"
"Renfro was right." Max stated monotonously. "I am poison."
Cindy gaped at her. This she hadn't expected. "An since when do we care what that bitch has to say?"
Max blinked at her. "She said I'm poison. That I kill everything I touch and she's right. Ben's dead because of me. Zack killed himself for me. I almost killed Logan. And now I've lost my baby. My precious little baby. I'll never see it born, never hold its hand. Never teach it how to kick ass. It's all just gone." Her voice broke down into sobs, shoulders sagging beneath the weight of her grief.
Cindy reached out to stroke Max's hair, lightly petting the dark tresses. Her friend stilled, freezing beneath her touch as an animal does when cornered, then violently jerked away, turning her back to the room. Cindy's hand hovered in thin air before dropping to her lap. Her shoulders slumped. How was she supposed to help Max if the girl didn't even want her with her.
"You should go, Cindy." Max's voice held no inflection whatsoever. "Before I hurt you, too."
'You already have.' Cindy thought despondently, then rallied. If Max wasn't gonna listen to her, then she was damn well gonna drag Alec's sorry ass back from wherever he was. 'An' his whole I'm superior human Manticore shit aint gonna help him none either.' Cindy thought, stomping out the door.
The X-6 nurse outside took one look at her face and shivered, supremely glad Cindy wasn't out for her blood and with a good idea who she was going after. The nurse was glad somebody who wouldn't take no for an answer was finally going after Max's mate . Alec might not realise it but his place was at Max's side. The girl was spiralling deeper into depression, fear feeding on fear, barely holding on by a thread, with nobody to provide a port in the storm. That was the whole point of mating. The knowledge that you had one person to watch your back no matter what grounded you better than anything else. Reminded you what you fought for, what you were willing to die for and what you were willing to live for.
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The door to command slammed back on its hinges, bouncing against the wall. Cindy stalked into the room, eyes flashing, pinning the assembled transgenics to their seats as surely as if she had run around the room with a nail gun.
Self-consciously some of them, previously lounging in chairs, straightened and pulled their feet off the tables.
"Where is he?" Cindy snapped in a voice that would have done one of their old drill sergeants proud. A chorus of mumbles did little to lessen her ire. "Don't be playin' me, fools!" She warned them. "I'm not buyin' the whole don't know where he is bull no more. You honestly want me to believe that y'all with your heightened senses and superior everything haven't managed to find one man?"
A couple transgenics flushed, unable to meet her gaze.
"Hah! Ah knew it. So why hasn't he hauled ass back here?"
Dix mumbled something, clearly afraid to garner her attention.
"Speak up, cyclops. Ah don't have all day."
"We've found him. But he doesn't want to come."
"Doesn't wanna -" Cindy flipped. "You mean to tell me that you knew where he was and let my friend cry her eyes out. Thinking he's gone forever when YOU. KNEW. ALL. THIS. TIME!" The transgenics shuffled their feet unable to answer.
"Transgenic or no. Ah should put the smack down on all yer asses."
"We've sent five people." Dix managed to stutter. "He flat-out ignored them all."
Cindy raised one finely shaped eyebrow, her disgust clearly apparent to the entire room. "Never send a man to do a woman's job." she muttered. "So, where is he?"
"Down in a pub, dockside, called the Flying Dutchman." Dix was supremely glad he wasn't in Alec's shoes right then and there, but felt obliged to add: "He's an X-5. You can't go down there and drag him back by his ear."
Cindy levelled a volcanic look in his direction. "Watch me!"
And with that she stalked out the room leaving behind a bunch of transgenics sagging with relief.
"Reminded me of Sergeant Harris there for a second. Almost jumped to attention." One of them mumbled to a chorus of groans.
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The Flying Dutchman wasn't as much of a dive as Cindy had expected. Granted it was down in the docks, a place she normally wouldn't be seen dead in, but the place looked in good repair. Of course her sense of safety was helped along by the fact that Dix had seen fit to send out two transgenics with her, no doubt reasoning that if Max found out he had let something happen to her best friend she would rouse herself long enough to make him severely regret that fact. Mole had added the snide remark that if she insisted on going after Alec and having her ass handed to her on a plate, the least they could do was make sure she got to him in one piece.
Tilting her head slightly, Cindy braced herself, before giving the door a push and entering the lion's den,almost immediatelygiving an extremely girly shriek as a body was thrown through the window next to her. One of her shadows nudged the body with his foot, before muttering: "Out cold."
Cindy looked at him incredulously, down at the man lying at her feet and then back into the impassive faces of the transgenics hovering protectively over her.
"Right then." she stated firmly. "Let's go in." And without further ado she slammed the door back open and walked into bedlam.
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She couldn't believe her eyes, the bar was trashed and getting more so by the moment. Men were fighting everywhere, laying into each other with single-minded almost clinical concentration. She could make out the five transgenics Dix had sent out, some because she seen them before around TC and some because somebody that size shouldn't be able to hold their own against five men. It didn't look like an anti-transgenic thing however as everyone was laying into anyone close enough to reach. It was the most democratic brawl Cindy had ever had the misfortune to observe.
And there at the end of the bar in a little bubble of silence sat Alec, nursing a bourbon. The brawl did not reach as far as him, not that Cindy was in any way surprised. An icy calm so cold you could have chilled beer with it came off him in almost visible waves warning all and sundry to keep well clear or suffer the consequences, none of which would be pleasant. As Cindy watched Alec tossed back the last of the liquid in his glass and lifted a single finger to signal for another.
She'd found Alec. Now all she had to do was get to him through the seething sea of humanity roiling at her feet. Well that and get the fool to come back to TC with her. Her lip set in a thin line, disapproval radiating from her body with such force the brawlers slowly had the feeling their mothers and third-grade teachers were in the room with them. One by one they stopped fighting, sheepishly and guiltily shuffling from foot to foot, before righting the chairs and sitting back down. Within minutes the brawl was over as the fighters ordered each other new drinks and did their best to appear harmless and innocent, pretending that they had not just been at each others throats for the sheer pleasure of letting off steam. No mean feat for six foot sailors with more ink tattooed into their bodies than a writer used in a year.
Cindy's eyes swept the now orderly room.
"Damn right."
She stalked forward to the bar, blithely ignoring her two bodyguards who were fiercely debating behind her back whether or not they could convince her to watch their backs on their next mission because everybody would be too scared of her to lift a finger in anger.
Cindy plopped down into the seat next to Alec, signalled for a beer and waited for him to acknowledge her. She was halfway through the rather good beer, before he deigned to say anything.
"What are you doing here?" Alec's voice held no inflection, flat, cold and deliberately uninterested.
Cindy snorted. "Wrong question, boo. The real question is what the heck are you doing here?"
"Drinking" Alec snuck a look at her from the corner of his eye, the soldier's mask sliding just long enough to show the pain swirling behind hazel eyes. Then his features carefully returned back to neutral. "I was enjoying the solitude."
Cindy took another sip of her drink, more because she needed time to gather her thoughts than anything else. She had been fully prepared to drag Alec's ass back where it belonged whether he wanted to or not, but the happy go lucky man she knew was in so much pain it made her heart ache and her mind revaluate her plan of action. She could see his pain in his deliberately blank stare. It was evident in every tensed line of his body. Here was somebody who had been hurt and played with far beyond what would have driven the average person into screaming insanity. Both her boos were lost. One spiralling into depression loosing contact with the world around her, the other retreating back into something he hated, forging himself back into an unfeeling soldier. A coping mechanism nothing more.
"Alec?"
No response.
"Alec? You need to come back with me."
Again not a flicker to show that he had even heard her, only a raised finger asking for another scotch.
"She needs you."
This did garner a response, even though it was not the one she wanted. "No, she really doesn't."
"Don't you go telling' me what my boo does or doesn't need." She snapped.
Again no real response, although Alec did grip his glass so tight his knuckles went white and Cindy was afraid it would shatter.
"Don't do this to her." Cindy implored. "Don't be doin' this to yourself."
"I'm not doing anything." Alec growled without looking at her. "That's the problem. Didn't do a damn thing when they threw us together. Should've tried to escape. Didn't try to stop them from ripping her from my arms, cutting into her, taking our-" His voice broke along with Cindy's heart. She watched silently as he tried to compose himself. "Didn't stop them from taking our child - our baby. Couldn't save either of our children. And now they are both gone. One, last night in blood and pain and the other months ago when we burnt Manticore to the ground and I didn't know. Was too weak to fight them. Too weak to protect my mate and our babies."
He stopped once again and all Cindy could do was stare at him and let the tears roll down her face as for the first time she faced up to their loss, let it hit her in its entirety, what had been done to them, what had been taken from them, their past, their present and their future. Alec's quiet voice jolted her back to bar.
"I failed them. Max is better off without me." He lowered his head in defeat.
"No, she's not. She needs you now more than ever."
Again no response as Alec sank back in on himself. However Cindy's next words snapped him out of his funk.
"She's dying, Alec. You're killing her. You're killing each other." Cindy was done playing nice. "She's sinking, just giving up, thinking you blame her." She grabbed Alec's arm and dragged him off his chair. "It's not your fault those monsters messed with your heads or took your babies. There was NOTHING you could do. They would have gotten what they wanted one way or another anyway." Her voice turned into an angry hiss. "But I can tell you one thing. If you don' get your fool ass in gear, she will fade away. And that will be your fault. And there is nowhere on God's green earth you could hide where I wouldn't find you and make you pay."
Alec looked at her in abject misery; Cindy's words having reached him where no amount of cajoling had. His shoulders sagged, misery seeping into features.
"Why does she need me? I'm a screw-up. I can't do anything right." Cindy's heart went out to him and she gathered his unresisting form into her arms for a tight hug, realising perhaps for the first time that Alec hadn't truly faced up to his loss yet, just sequestered it into a corner of his mind, locked in a box, using the only coping mechanism Manticore had seen fit to give him.
"The only thing I'm good at is killing people." Alec mumbled into her hair.
Cindy pushed him away slightly, uncomfortable with the setting that had been chosen for this conversation, yet knowing that she had no choice, they had to have it now or not at all. If she waited, or tried to drag Alec back to the infirmary then that would be the end, there would be no other chance to get this out in the open. And she trusted the two transgenics that had come with her to keep the rest of the bar away from them. So far it seemed to be working, their evil glares keeping the clientele at bay. "Alec, you are not a killer." She forestalled him as he automatically attempted to protest. "No listen to me, nobody is born a killer. Yes, Manticore trained you to be the perfect assassins, did their best to make you think that that was the only thing you were good for and the only destiny you were ever going to have, but now it's different. You have a choice now, you and Max gave each other and the rest of the transgenics a choice and a chance. The chance to overcome the training Are you going to let Manticore dictate the rest of your life, believe it when they want you to believe that you are useless so they can control you or are you going to make a choice. It's up to you, here and now."
Alec looked at her speechlessly, a thousand and one thoughts racing through his head as the training of decades battled with all he had done, learned and seen in the meantime, all that had been taught to him. Cindy was right, it did come down to one choice, Manticore or Max. His past or his future. And in the end it was an easy choice after all.
"Let's go." He jumped up from his chair, face still grim after all that had happened in the previous days, but the load on his shoulders had considerably lightened. Cindy smiled at him, and followed him out, the transgenics falling in line behind them.
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Alec knew that the hard part had been the decision he had had to make in the Flying Dutchman. The decision to come back into Max's life, to get past years of conditioning and reach out to the one person in all the world that made him feel whole, wanted, loved. She had been his guiding light for such a long time. Every night in that hellhole, when the scientists had done their best to break him and admit to something he had no hand in, she had been the only thing keeping him going. The knowledge that when they threw him back into their cell with too little food and water she would be waiting. No matter how horrible their quarters were, she made them home, simply by being there. Everything else faded into the distance, the cold and damp, the underlying fear left unacknowledged that every night might be their last night.
And even though he hadn't remembered, the vague knowledge that his soul mate was somewhere out there had been enough to keep him going, keep him going until the day Renfro had sent him intoa traitor's cell to be her breeding partner. How the bitch must have laughed, maybe saw it as a second chance to make them suffer even more. After all she must have known Max had been pregnant with twins. Or maybe she had thought she could pull one over the big bosses. More evidence to hide that her precious project had already born fruit. And that the remaining baby had either been unable to live or they had not cared about the damage they left behind when they removed the sibling.
All that was academic though, their babies were dead and so was Renfro and her crew of demons. There was nothing left to save, it had all been taken away in a blaze of hellfire proportions when he and Max had blown that place back to where it came from. Now the only thing left to do was to pick up the pieces and see if it was still possible to make a complete picture from what was left. He needed Max and she needed him, that was a place to start and if their life together was not quite as it could have been then there was nothing they could do to change that except search out the remaining people responsible for Manticore and let them burn.
But first he had to take that second step, had to push open the door in front of him and go back to the place he belonged.
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Cindy stood a little further down the hall from Alec and watched as he fought with himself. She was sure he wouldn't run, the hard part after all had been getting from the bar to here. As she watched his expressive face run through a thousand emotions, she realised that she had always underestimated his ability to feel, maybe because he hid it so well. Yet now it was all there on his face for the world to see, his fear and anger, the love he felt for Max, the overwhelming grief he had for their children. It was almost too intimate to watch, but Cindy felt somebody had to bear witness.
She watched as Alec steeled himself and straightened his shoulders and pushed the door open. Just before it closed, she could just make out Max's broken voice as she called his name and his stammered apologies. Then the door closed off all sound.
341
After great pain a formal feeling comes-
The nerves sit ceremonious like Tombs-
The stiff Heart questions was it He, that bore,
And Yesterday, or Centuries before?
x
The feet mechanically go round-
Of Ground, or Air, or Ought-
A Wooden way
Regardless grown
A Quartz contentment, like a stone-
x
This is the Hour of Lead-
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons, recollect the snow-
First - Chill - then Stupor - then the letting go-
Ca. 1862