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A/N: YAY! Thank you to Alexa, Tina, x5 416, Sandra, Grace, Winchester girl, Unknown x5, Rose, Lea, Lexy, Alie and Jo for reviewing the last chapter! I'm glad you all enjoyed it so much, and thank you, thank you, thank you for all the reviews!
Ex Multus Familia: Part 2
Chapter 5
Logan jumped as someone touched his shoulder, waking him up from his nap. He turned to look up at a feminine face, pale and framed with dark red hair. Adenine.
"Hey, sleepy-head," she said, poking him in the shoulder again, "You're drooling on your test notes."
Logan groaned and sat up, rubbing at the back of his neck and brushing away the drool that, surprise, wasn't there. Funny, Nine… "How long have I been out?"
"Max said to let you sleep, so we did," Nine replied. She walked around the edge of the desk and sat down at her own station. "But you started snoring, and it was more than a little distracting."
"Sorry," Logan muttered. He looked down at the notes in front of him, the ones he had fallen asleep over. They were translations of Max's most current tattoos. He still had not figured out the entire message, but he had made out some words: second, child, light, hope. Whatever that meant, he didn't know. He would have discovered the exact meaning sooner, but he was expending most of his energy on helping the scientists, Hayden, the one from the Italian mission, and Ted, who had tried to run for the Amazon.
Ted was now completely compliant and did not require any supervision, but Hayden was another story. He was only still there because A: the government would sweep him up if he tried to go to them and B: most of the transgenics in the city would have loved to kill him if he did something wrong. It made life interesting, Hayden cursing all of them while working beside Ted, who noticeably had an eye on Nine.
Marie was also often in the lab, but she still wasn't much help. Every now and then she would spout off some interesting detail or memory that might or might not be helpful, but usually she just wandered around in a daze or worked by herself. Max hoped that she would one day get better, recover from the shock of losing her husband, but Logan was not going to stake any of his major hopes in her.
He slid off the stool and moved toward the vials that were sitting on the table. Both Hayden and Ted were in their individual labs, working on projects: Ted was working on the Cure to Max's virus while Hayden was looking into creating heat-suppressing drugs. After Sidda and Alec's stunt the other week, it seemed like a good thing to be working on.
Logan glanced over at Adenine. She was working closely with Ted on the Cure, but so far none of the tests had been positive. Logan had thought that once they got a Manticore scientist, everything would go smoothly, but it seemed like the virus had been mutating, growing stronger, and the cure that Ted had first come up with had not survived the test trials. A new batch had been created and testing was supposed to occur soon, like…last night…
Logan turned toward Nine, rubbing his chin in curiosity. "Nine."
"Yeah?" she asked, turning her swivel chair around to face him. Logan looked around the room, wondering where the test vials that had been sitting on the table in the middle had gone.
"Did you run those tests while I was asleep?"
Nine quickly looked away. "Maybe."
Logan reached out and put a hand on the file cabinet. If he had been a transgenic, he would have crushed the metal he was grasping, but he wasn't transgenic, now was he?
"And?"
"And what?" Adenine turned toward him, her green eyes wide.
"And how did they turn out?" he said slowly. He knew the answer from the way she was asking, but he wanted to hear it for himself.
Nine's eyes were trained on the laptop in front of her, and Logan followed her line of sight. Negative. The test results were on the screen. All negative.
He felt like lifting the filing cabinet over his head and chucking it into a wall or crumpling it into a ball, but he didn't. He couldn't. Instead, he calmly removed his hand from the shelving unit and nodded. "Okay then." He gritted his teeth in what was possibly the fakest smile ever. "Better luck next time, right?"
Nine turned toward him, her hand extended. "Logan…"
He pulled away and shook his head, still wearing that plastered-on grin. "No, no, Nine, it's okay." He rubbed his hand over his face and let out a long sigh. "I'll let Max know, all right? Don't worry about it."
"All right," she said quietly.
"I'm going to go get some lunch, seeing how I slept all morning."
"You were up all night, Logan."
"Yeah, well, so was everyone else, and they're not sleeping, are they?" he snapped. He automatically regretted it when he saw the hurt expression on his face, but he just could not apologize right now. He had to get out of there, out into some open air, just go for a walk. "I'm going out. I'll see you later, Nine."
"Bye," he heard Nine say right before the door to the hall slammed closed.
--------------------------
Robin made a face at the awful noises coming out of the violin Dalton was attempting to play. She reached up and rubbed her ear, trying to expunge the screeches of the strings. The kid had been kicked out of every room in headquarters and his apartment building so far, so they had let him come into the building that Joshua had designated as the Cultural Center.
A lot of the transgenics were there, cleaning, fixing and painting everything white since Joshua had decided that eventually the whole place was going to be covered in murals. Dalton had taken up in one of the rooms that Robin was decorating, and it seemed like he was trying to kill the violin that he was supposed to be learning how to play.
She sighed and leaned against the wall, her hands over her ears as she tried to ignore the violin. It had been three weeks since Seth had left, and they had now drifted into August. The apartment had been lonely for a few days after Sidda had moved back into Alec's apartment a week and a half ago; Sidda had made a half-hearted attempt to return to Robin's apartment, but Alec had put all of her clothes and then her back into their apartment, ending that dilemma. Syl had moved into Robin's apartment instead, claiming she was there for the food. Robin was glad for the company, but she missed Seth. A lot. And he was supposed to be home already! Wasn't two weeks enough for whatever he had to do?
The violin made an extremely keen death keel, and immediately transgenics started yelling at Dalton to shut up.
"Dalton, if you don't put that thing down right now, I swear to God, I'll shove it down your throat!" some furious male voice roared, muffled through a few walls.
"Up his ass is a good place too."
"Impale him on it!"
Robin heard something behind her, and she turned around to find Sidda leaning against the doorway. She was paint-splattered and dirty with the muck that seemed to cover everything in Terminal City, but she was smiling. "I think I'm just going to beat him over the head with it," she said, throwing a look into the hallway over her shoulder.
Robin put down the lamp she had been situating on the desk and walked over to the doorway. "Aren't you supposed to be working on something?"
Sidda made a face. "Yeah, they've got me hauling trash out of all these rooms, but I'm taking a break." She held up the water bottle in her hand as an excuse. Wandering into the room, she turned around and looked at the walls Robin had painted two days ago. This whole room was sleek and comfortable at the same time, with a great view of Terminal City and beyond that, Seattle. Sidda let out a low whistle and sat down on the couch Robin had moved in there. "It always amazes me what you're able to get in these decorating excursions."
"Junkyards are awesome," Robin said, throwing a smile at Sidda. Robin indicated the couch was Sidda was sitting on. "Believe it or not, that couch was covered with scratchy brown-orange cloth. That black leather does wonders for it, doesn't it?"
"It really does. I never would have guessed at the grunge that lies beneath," Sidda said.
"Guess what this room is for?" Robin asked. She was bouncing on her toes slightly, obviously bursting with some sort of secret that she wanted to reveal to Sidda.
"Um…I really don't know," Sidda said, looking around. It simply looked like a really nice living room.
"It's the waiting room slash lounge for your dance studio. They all have one. People not dancing can wait here or watch if they want." She pulled on Sidda's arm. "Here, look." Robin showed her a set of strange, dark mirrors on the wall next to a closed door.
"Um, it matches the furniture?" Sidda said, eyeing the mirrors.
Robin sighed and flicked the light switch so that the room was dark. Sidda blinked; the other room was still illuminated, and now they could see clearly into the room.
"Oh, wow, that is cool!" Sidda exclaimed. She opened the door and went into the studio. They were still working on painting the walls and cleaning up the floors, but it was easy to see what the studio would be like when it was finished. The windows looking into the studio were nice and large, and she leaned on one of the ledges to get a view. Just as great as the one in the waiting room.
"This almost makes me glad that I'm going to teach this crazy class," Sidda said with a laugh. "Though I wouldn't mind getting to have this studio to myself without having to agree to the class."
"You have to share it with other dance instructors too," Robin admonished Sidda. "You can't go all alpha on them and never let them in."
"Really? Why not?" Sidda grinned as Robin thwapped her on the side of the head. "Geez, Robin, always take everything so seriously."
Robin just shook her head. "All right, Sidda, break's over unless you feel like painting instead of taking out trash."
"That's a very tempting offer," Sidda said, surveying the dance studio again. "It doesn't smell as bad as trash, and I'll get to see more getting done." It was always a nice feeling to see a project you were working on get completed.
"Here." Robin tossed her a paint roller and pointed to a couple cans of paint. "It'll be a honey-beige tone. Sound ok?"
"It'll go well with the wood floors, I guess," Sidda said, going to pry the paint can. Well, it would once the floors had been varnished. But they would have to save that for last. Just then they both turned and glanced at the window-mirror as they heard voices and footsteps in the other room.
"Hold on, I'm gonna go see who that is," Robin said.
"All right. I'll be here, painting. And if it's the trash crew, you don't know where I am."
"Got it." Robin went back into the other room, then stopped in shock as she realized who the two men in front of her were. One was Alec…and the other…
"Seth?" It came out as a whisper-squeak. She froze, too surprised to do or say anything.
"Robin?" Besides being rather sandy still and tired, Seth looked worried. He probably hadn't expected Robin to freak out when he got home. His voice was all Robin needed though.
She flung herself forward and wrapped her arms around him. Robin buried her head in his shoulder, smelling the unusual scents of the Middle East mixed with Seth's normal smell. She felt her body tremble with relief, and much to her embarrassment, she started crying. She'd tried so hard not to think about him while he was gone that it was like all the thoughts she'd pushed away were suddenly flooding back, and she was only just now realizing what could have happened to him.
"Hey, hey, it's ok," Seth said, tilting her chin up. He frowned at her, trying to figure out why she was upset.
"I'm happy," Robin said, realizing what Seth needed. Seth smiled and kissed her deeply, and they both forgot for a moment that they were in a public place until Sidda came hurtling into the room.
"Seth! Oh my gosh, I thought it was you I heard!" Sidda ran up, and Seth turned and gave her a sheepish smile before hugging her.
"Hey, Sidda." As soon as Seth released Sidda from the hug she turned on Alec and hit his arm.
"You knew he was coming home! I can't believe you didn't tell me! I could've helped set it up!" Robin laughed and snuggled in closer to Seth as she watched Sidda beat up on Alec. Everything was back to normal and ok now. Robin sighed, feeling a huge wave of tension wash away from her.
"Ow, geez, Sidda, it was a surprise!" Alec shrunk away from Sidda and tried to grab her hands before she could hit him again.
"So, what've you been doing without me?" Seth asked, holding Robin from behind, his arms draped over her shoulders. Robin rested her head against his chest and shrugged.
"Nothing much. Joshua's gone on a cultural arts drive, which means all of us are supposed to be doing something like dance or art or—"
"Or room decorating," Seth interrupted, squeezing her tighter for a moment.
"Or that," Robin replied. She grinned at him. "Besides, that nothing much had been happening." Her eyes slid over to Sidda. "Except for this incident a couple weeks ago…"
"That isn't important," Sidda said, realizing where this conversation was going. She gave Robin a tight smile. "At all."
"I think it was important," Alec said.
"I don't know, it's news," Robin said. She wrapped her fingers around Seth's arms and pulled them tighter, as if she could lock his arms around her.
Seth cocked an eyebrow and pressed his cheek against Robin's. "And what is this elusive news?"
"Hey, your apartment misses you," Sidda said, "Don't you want to go visit it or something?" She raised her eyebrows and smiled suggestively.
Seth and Robin looked at each other, suddenly grinning. Seth tightened his grasp on her and put his mouth near her ear. "You know, I really, really like the sound of that." He twisted her around and pulled her closer, putting his hand on the back of her neck.
"You're doing a good job of avoiding this news, Sidda," Robin said, tossing a look at her friend, "But I think that might work."
"It's all yours," Alec said, "We'll watch the kid."
"We will?" Sidda asked, looking up at him.
Alec shrugged. "Yeah, we will."
"All right, but just for tonight," Robin said, "She'll need a bottle when you guys get her from day care." She looked up at Seth suspiciously. "Have you even seen her yet?"
Seth grinned at her. "Yes, I did, right before I came to see you."
"Daddy first, mine second?" Robin asked.
"Always yours, but I thought I could spend a little time with Taylor before spending the whole night with you," Seth said, running his fingers into his hair.
"And that is our cue to exit," Sidda said, taking Alec's hand, "Come on, you awful, hateful, secretive man."
Alec smirked as he let Sidda pull him away. "You like secrets."
"When I'm in on them!"
"So, how about that apartment?" Robin said, pressing herself into Seth's side. She reached up and pulled him down for a long, hard kiss that left them both breathless. "I really, really missed you."
Seth laughed and the end sounded more like a growl. "Oh, I think I can say that the feeling was mutual."
"You ready for a wedding?" Robin asked, grinning at him.
"I'm ready for the wedding night. Right now," he said, tilting her head back for another kiss. They broke apart when they heard a loud, appreciative whistle. Dalton was leaning out of his practice room, a sloppy grin on his face.
"Wow, guys, get a room," he said. He relined back against the doorway and crossed his arms over his skinny chest.
"Grow up, Dalton," Robin said, shaking her head at him.
Seth smirked. "Hey, Anica was asking about you. She was in headquarters when I last saw her."
Dalton's eyes widened. "Really?"
"Really?"
That was all it took to get him skittering down the hall, the violin forgotten in the practice room. Robin turned back to Seth, amused. "Liar."
"Little lie," Seth said, tightening his arms around her, "She sort of asked about him. In passing. Now," he moved his hands down her waist, "How about that apartment?"
"I think that's a perfect idea," Robin said, moving her hip against his.
-----------------------------------------------
Logan landed a punch, another one, and a third on the decrepit, salvaged punching bag. It was triple-reinforced so his punches did not do much, but it was supposed to be for transgenics, not some weak human. He gritted his teeth and punched it again.
He was in Gatorade's gym, taking out his frustration on the punching bag, but it was only making him angrier. He was just inadequate, that was all. Nothing else. Max needed one of her own kind, not some weak, useless human like him that she couldn't even touch.
He saw the look in her eyes when she watched him; she actually wanted to protect him, her protect him instead of the other way around. Logan jabbed the punching bag again. That wasn't the way it was supposed to be. He was supposed to take care of her. That was his job, but he couldn't even touch her…
"Logan?"
Logan grabbed the punching bag and froze for a moment before hitting the bag with renewed force. "Do you need something, Max?"
He could feel her behind her, standing there, just watching. And possibly pitying. God, he hated pity.
"No, I was just worried about you," she said. She paused and for a minute there was only the sound of him hitting the punching bag. "Nine called and said that the tests came back negative."
"I was going to tell you," Logan admitted, turning his head away in embarrassment. He'd been hoping to have all the anger out before he went looking for Max. He supposed he should be grateful to Nine for knowing him better than he did.
"Hey, it's ok." Max attempted an indifferent shrug. "Nothing new, right?"
"Yeah, nothing new." Logan wiped his forehead. "I thought that those missions we sent everyone on… the people we brought back…I thought it would make a difference. I don't know what to do if it doesn't."
"It will, Logan." Max wrapped her arms around herself in an effort to fight the need to wrap her arms around him so that they could comfort each other. "These things always take time. But it'll happen."
Logan sometimes wondered why Max was with him when she had all the transgenic guys to pick from. Was it because she felt the need to help people? Maybe she wouldn't like him as much if he didn't need her. But… she had needed him when they first met. That was when things had felt right, when he had felt like he could start a relationship. Everything was so twisted now, no straightforward relationship roles like normal people got.
"Logan?"
Logan shook his head and then attempted a smile for her. "It just makes me wonder sometimes," he said. "Fate seems so against us sometimes."
"I think about that all the time too." Max gently nudged the punching bag and then looked at him. "But at the same time, it seems like it wants to help us too… all our friends do so much for us, we've found the scientists, we've come so far in everything…" Max smiled. "I think it'll be ok in the end. I really do."
Logan shook his head and laughed. "I don't think there's another transgenic who has as much optimism as you." He looked at her. "I think that's why they all look to you for leadership. You have the ability to dream of better things."
Max was practically blushing. "We all have dreams," she said. "It's just that for those who didn't escape, they had to keep their dreams buried so deep that they hardly knew what they were. Being a dreamer at Manticore got you hell-to-the-nowhere."
Logan frowned. "Yeah, I bet not." His pocket started buzzing, and Logan sighed and pulled it out. It was Nine. "One sec," he said, "Nine is calling."
"Logan?"
"Yep, it's me. What's up? Lab explode?"
He could practically hear Nine rolling her eyes. "Yeah, exactly. That's why I sound so calm."
"Well, what terrible disaster has happened then?"
"Not a disaster, it's…well, you should come down to the lab. Is Max with you?"
"Yeah, actually, she is."
"She'll want to come too, then," Nine said.
"You can't just tell me over the phone?" Logan asked.
"I know you guys will want to see this," Nine promised. "Just come on." Nine hung up with a click and Logan shrugged and looked at Max.
"Hear that?"
"Yep," Max said, "Don't know what she's up to, but I guess we better go. I have my motorcycle parked outside, what about you?" Unfortunately, the stupid virus made it impossible for them to ride on a motorcycle together."
"I've got mine out there too, I'll catch up to you at the infirmary."
Max always beat him with a motorcycle, mostly because he wasn't entirely comfortable with driving one yet. He preferred cars, but cars just weren't practical for simply getting around Terminal City unless he was carrying a bunch of stuff. Still, he'd managed to avoid getting a motorcycle until his friends had decided to gift him with one a month ago. So now he had to use it.
When he finally pulled up to the infirmary, Max was waiting outside of the lab entrance for him. "I figured that if Nine wanted us to come in together, that's what we'd do," she said. "It's not like she'd show me anything without you there anyway."
"So the point in racing ahead was…?"
"Pure fun," Max said, grinning at him.
When they entered the lab, everyone was acting very strangely. A few people seemed to be working, but they weren't really doing anything. They were just watching Logan and Max out of the corners of their eyes. Most of the lab workers had simply given up any pretense of working and were blatantly staring.
"I feel like a two-headed monster or something," Logan whispered.
Max cocked an eyebrow at him. "Yeah, by the way, welcome to the world of transgenics."
"Point taken." Logan and Max sat down on stools facing Nine at her workstation. It was obviously meant for them; microscopes had been set up at each stool, lab notes were carefully laid out, and she had her computer turned toward their seats.
"So," Logan said, glancing at the microscope. "What'd you find?"
Nine smiled. "All this is because I know you won't believe me. But I went back to look at the date, Logan. And one of the tests was mislabeled. It was positive."
Max and Logan stared at her for a moment, then Logan shook his head as if trying to rid himself of an annoying insect.
"Positive? Positive for what?"
Nine laughed. "Positive as in a positive match, Logan. We might have to do a few more tests to make sure it's not a fluke, but we may have found the Cure."