Disclaimer: I don't own Dark Angel so don't sue me. Thanks. :-)

A/N: Thank you to peculiarxemma and nattylovesu for reviewing! This chapter has more Alec and Sidda in it than the last few. ^_^

Ex Multus Familia: Part 2

Chapter 18

After Dalton and Co.'s little escapade into Seattle and a lot of talking and discussion, Alec's idea of city survival courses was carried through. The X6s, non-creepy X7s and the few remaining X8s were broken down into groups and assigned to a willing, older mentor. It turned out that this arrangement gave multiple people something to do; the older transgenics were kept busy with lesson plans and arranging times when they could leave Terminal City with their teams while the younger ones were just glad to have something to do.

While the survival courses were just beginning, the government mission teams were chosen and trained. Logan had suggested they send out two teams, one local and one for Washington. That way they could keep an eye on local politics and the big league. The local team was going to be more open about their movements than the team that was going to Washington.

While the local team would actually be entering into the political world as clerks, assistants and other minor jobs, the Washington team was going to be performing undercover reacon. They would arrive and spread out into smaller teams of two or three and form bases for intense spying. Five transgenics would be entering into Seattle politics while a group of ten was being sent to the East Coast.

Since Everett's initiation into the transgenic hate group, nothing major had happened on that front line. It seemed like they were trying to amass more weapons before they attacked; Everett still wasn't sure since he hadn't gained access to the most secret information. They kept making small protests at the walls of T.C., but nothing more than that.

Everything was relatively quiet for a couple months and restrictions on transgenic movement were gradually lifted, although permits to go out into the city were difficult to obtain. You had to have a good reason for going out into Seattle, and you probably weren't going to be allowed to go beyond the sectors that butted up against Sector 7, where Terminal City was located. It was irritating that they still weren't being trusted to take care of themselves, but it wasn't like they didn't have their own ways of getting out of the city.

The Cultural Center was becoming one of the busiest places in T.C. It now had a growing library on the second floor; they had taken the day care out and put it in an empty room at HQ, partly to make more space in the building and partly because HQ was the most fortified building in T.C. If anything happened to the city, the lower levels of H.Q. were going to be standing no matter what.

In the Cultural Center, most of the transgenics could find some way to pass the time, and it turned out that most of them were good at some creative outlet or another. Some were great artists or singers or dancer or musicians. It seemed that Manticore had given everyone some kind of right-brain ability.

Then again, some people were having a hard time finding their ability.

Alec made a face as a series of awful notes came out of the piano. Why hadn't they made all the transhumans with photographic memories too? It'd be a lot easier to teach Evelyn the piano if she had that skill. It was becoming obvious to Alec that she didn't have a musical ear, especially when she turned to him, biting her lip.

"Was that good?" she asked. The transhuman was a human and cat mix, most likely one of the early attempts to create an X5. She had pointed ears, yellow eyes and fingernails that were much too long. That wasn't even mentioning her long, flailing tail…

He managed to smile back at her. "Uh, it was a good try, but I think you should keep practicing."

Evelyn's face fell. "But I've been practicing." She sat back, putting her hands in her lap. "Maybe I'm just not supposed to play the piano."

Alec sighed. Finally, she had come to the realization herself. "There's probably something around here that you're better at."

She flashed her narrowed yellow eyes at him. "As my teacher, aren't you supposed to tell me I should keep trying, no matter what?"

Not when there was no hope. Alec pushed himself away from the wall, walking over to lean against the piano. "Probably, but I'm just saying you might be happier doing something else. What have you already tried?"

"Dancing, sculpting, painting, drawing, home-decorating," Evelyn listed, flicking her fingers at each one. She smirked at him, her cattish face amused. "The others just told me I was no good, except Joshua. He kept telling me to keep trying, but I really do suck at painting."

"A lot of us do," Alec said. He remembered his own failed attempt at painting; Sidda had threatened to frame it and hang it in their apartment just to cause him eternal shame. At least until she painted something equally as bad, and then she gave up the threat.

"Yeah, but it seems like everyone else is good at something," Evelyn said. She stood up from the piano bench and brushed her fingers through her long black hair.

"Maybe you should stop trying to learn from other people and find whatever you're good at by yourself," Alec said, shrugging. "Hell, can't hurt."

"So you're saying I'm not going to get better at the piano?" Evelyn asked, raising an eyebrow.

Alec grinned. "Seriously doubt it."

She snorted. "Asshole." Standing up, she walked to the door, her tail swinging behind her. When she reached the door, she turned around, her hand on the doorway. "Hey, what do you think I'm good at?"

"Hell if I know," Alec said. He pulled the cover over the piano keys and smirked at her. "You'll find something."

Evelyn rolled her eyes. "See you around, Alec." She left the door open behind her, which let muffled music from the other rooms drift into this one.

Alec left soon after she did, bypassing the other practice rooms and heading for the staircase. He was sort of proud of himself. He had spent the whole morning away from Sidda, who was teaching dance classes upstairs. Seth and Sibil had both agreed that dancing was fine as long as she didn't go overboard, and besides, the exercise was good for her. She was also under strict orders to rest if she felt the least bit dizzy, which she had agreed to without complaint when she found out they were going to let her keep dancing.

The waiting room and Sidda's dance studio were both empty, leaving Alec at a loss for where his mate could be. She had said she would be teaching until around lunch time, but they could meet up then and eat with Robin and Seth.

Making a face, he turned around and headed back down the stairs. Maybe she had gone to visit Robin… He hurried past a couple of transgenics, giving them just a cursory nod as they greeted him.

Knocking for a second on Robin's door, he let himself into her third floor arts studio. The place was an organized mess; she knew where everything was, but that didn't mean that someone else would be able to find anything. She looked up from where she was sitting at a table, moving a pencil across a piece of paper. Turned out that Robin was a pretty good sketch artist on top of being a decorator; they had already sold a couple of her sketches to the same arts dealer who took Joshua's paintings.

"Hey, Alec," she said, smiling at him. From a baby pen on the other side of the room, Taylor gurgled her own welcome. It was quite apparent that Sidda wasn't in here.

"Hey, Robin," Alec said, "You haven't seen Sidda, have you?"

Robin shook her head. "Not since this morning. Why, isn't she upstairs?"

"It'd be nice if she was," Alec said, shoving his hand through his hair. All right, she wasn't with her best friend, but there was no need to get worried. It wasn't like she had wandered off and fainted somewhere where he wouldn't be able to find her… "Do you have any idea where she might be?"

"I don't know," Robin said, "She might have been called over to HQ or something." She stood up and then leaned against the table. "Do you want me to help you look for her?"

Alec shook his head. "No, it's okay." He threw a wry smile in Taylor's direction. "Baby carrier might get in the way."

Robin laughed and shook her head. "I can carry her, you know. And Sidda's fine, wherever she is, so don't go getting all freaked out. Got it?"

Alec mock saluted her before he left. "Got it."

For fifteen more minutes, Alec checked all the rooms in the Cultural Center that he thought Sidda could have been in. She wasn't in any of them. He called her cell phone and was sent straight to voice mail. Of course. He then called Max to make sure she wasn't at HQ, which she wasn't, and he called the infirmary to check there. Gray had promptly informed him that, no, Sidda wasn't there, if she had been, they would have called him, just like he had demanded that they did.

At a loss, Alec leaned against the wall on the first floor, wracking his brain for where his pint-sized mate could have hidden herself.

"What is Alec doing?"

Alec turned his head to see Joshua leaning out of the doorway to his own expansive studio. It was easily the biggest, mostly because Joshua needed a lot of room for his prolific artwork and the guy wasn't very graceful.

"Wondering where the hell Sidda is," Alec said darkly.

"Sidda sleeping," Joshua said, as if everyone should have known that already and he didn't understand why Alec was out of the loop.

Alec raised an eyebrow. "Where?"

Joshua motioned for him to follow and disappeared back into his studio. Shoving away from the wall, Alec strolled after Joshua, keeping up with the transhuman's loping gait. So he could give classes and still have room for himself, Joshua had the big studio and then another, smaller one off to the side, just for himself. Joshua led Alec through the first studio and then through the doorway that led to the smaller one.

And there was Sidda, on an old blue couch, asleep with her head cushioned on her hands. Alec shook his head and walked over to her. She looked fine to him, besides the fact that she was sleeping in the middle of the day. "So, what, she just came down here to snooze?"

Joshua moved over to easel, picking up the brush. "Sidda wasn't feeling well, came here to rest a couple hours ago. Fell asleep while talking to me." He smiled as he dabbed his paintbrush into an open can. "Sidda worried that Alec would be worried about her. Didn't want me to say anything to Alec."

Alec frowned as he bent down next to the couch and brushed some of Sidda's thick, dark blond hair out of her face. "Was she feeling sick?"

"No, just tired," Joshua said. He dashed the paintbrush across the painting, adding more color to what Alec would say was another one of his famous, best-selling messes. "Sidda have two people to care about now, Alec and Bean. Bean makes her tired and then Alec worries about Sidda being tired, which makes Sidda feel bad."

Alec smirked at the nickname for his kid. Sidda usually hated it when anyone but her or Alec used it, but it seemed that Joshua was let into their tiny circle, probably because Sidda had a soft spot for the towering transhuman.

Alec slipped onto the couch, picking Sidda up and settling her back on his lap. He put one hand on her arm and the other on what used to be her flat stomach. Now that she was five months into her pregnancy, her stomach now had a pronounced bump, but it wasn't a baby bubble yet. They didn't know whether Bean was a girl or boy since neither of them wanted to know and spoil that surprise, but Sidda kept insisting it was a boy. Alec wouldn't have minded that, and he rarely contradicted her since she was defensive about the claim.

Sidda stirred and put her hand over his, blinking awake. She smirked sleepily up at him. "Hey, you."

"Hey yourself." Alec brushed her hair back. He wanted to say something about her nap, but after what Joshua had said, he didn't want to upset her.

Sidda sat up and gave him a puzzled look. "What, no clever remarks about me needing my beauty sleep? No worried questions about me being sick or something?"

Alec laughed; Sidda knew him too well. "Already asked Joshua all those," he admitted, pulling her against him. He was going to miss her cuddly moods after she was done being pregnant. But he wouldn't miss the fainting, for sure.

"Yes, yes, he did," Joshua conformed, his voice a mumble as he concentrated on the painting in front of him. "I tell Alec Bean makes you tired."

"Yes, he certainly does," Sidda mumbled, snuggling up against Alec. She wasn't quite ready to give up on napping yet.

"You hungry, or should I call Seth and Robin and let them know we won't be coming until later?" Alec asked. Either way was good with him, as long as Sidda was happy. Happy Sidda meant not-fainting Sidda, which meant happy Alec.

Sidda considered it for a moment, evaluating warring needs: sleep and hunger. Hunger won out, since both she and the baby were hungry, and only she was tired. Or at least, that was why she assumed she was starving at the moment. "Nope, don't cancel. Let's go eat," she said, hopping off of Alec. She turned around yanked him up, really, really starving now that she had a chance to think about it.

Alec laughed. "Ok, ok, we're eating. See you later Joshua, unless you wanna come?"

"No, Joshua busy painting. Joshua eat Mac and Cheese later." Again with the mumbling. The message was clear: Joshua was painting, and there was no point bothering him now until he was done. He was in the zone.

"All right, later Joshua."

"Thanks for letting me crash!" Sidda called out as she pulled Alec along. She was hungry. Now.

As they headed back toward Robin's studio, Sidda turned and glanced at him. "Did you hear about what Everett has to do with that awful hate group tonight? Mona's really upset again."

"No, I hadn't heard at all," Alec replied. He rubbed the back of his neck where some of his muscles had tensed up from wincing at Evelyn's playing for an hour. "It was my turn to handle Evelyn today."

"Ooh, I'm sorry," Sidda said sympathetically. Dancing had been one of the first things Evelyn had tried, and she'd gotten Sidda to teach her. Sidda had been one of those straightforward people who'd flat-out told Evelyn that she wasn't going to get much better, with her already-dubious dancing skills. If someone had trouble with gracefulness and mastering rhythm, they really weren't going to get much farther in any ability related to music.

But apparently Evelyn had decided that her lack of rhythm would have no effect on her piano-playing ability…

"I think I managed to convince her to try something else," Alec said.

"Poor girl, she really wants to be good at something artistic," Sidda said. "But I'm just not sure that Manticore gave her any of that."

"No kidding," Alec said. "So what's up with Everett and Mona?"

Sidda sighed. "Well, Everett wants Mona to come to dinner again… and then he wants us to keep her away from the TV. Apparently the transgenic hate group thing wants to do some broadcast against transgenics, and they want Everett to be there. Probably checking his loyalty again or something."

"Wow." Alec shook his head as he opened the door to Robin's studio. "I'm not sure I'd be able to do that."

"Do what?" Robin asked, looking up at them. She was sitting in Taylor's playpen, holding Taylor while the child kept determinedly trying to crawl out of her mother's lap.

"Everett and that TV show," Sidda said. She promptly went over and climbed into the play pen. She held out her arms, and Robin let Taylor crawl to Sidda. Sidda had been spending a lot of time with Taylor lately; she was determined to be sure of what she was doing when her own baby was born.

Alec decided there wasn't enough room in the playpen for all of them and so sat in a chair right outside of it instead, watching while Robin started packing Taylor's toys into a bag. "It would just be tough; to act like everything you care about is stuff that you hate."

And for Everett, it was tough. When he finally managed to leave Robin and Seth's apartment later that evening, it wasn't without an extremely guilty conscience. Mona had tried to be supportive, knowing that it was what Everett wanted to do, and what Everett felt was his duty, but he could still see how much it bothered her, and how much it worried her. And he didn't like to worry her when she was as close to childbirth as she was.

Max hadn't helped either. She'd actually called to tell him that he didn't have to do it, that another agent could be found if he was uncomfortable. But Everett had turned the offer down.

"This is the best way I know how to protect my family and my friends," he'd told her. "I can't leave when I've gotten in so far. We can't afford the time it'd take to get another agent in. And then they'd have to make a hard decision too. Let this be my burden Max. I'll only feel worse if I try to pass it off to someone else."

Max had stopped trying to persuade him after that. She needed him there, so she wasn't going to fight with him too much. And now Everett was going, alone again. He'd refused to allow Emma and Twizzler to come to such a public event, and he was of half a mind to just see if he could have them taken off of the mission. He didn't like having them involved in such dirty business.

Everett climbed out of the tunnels a good sector away from where they were meeting. It was a precaution he'd started taking a week or so before he'd been initiated. He didn't want them to trace him back to T.C., and in the sewer tunnels it was easier to tell if someone was tracking him.

As he traveled closer, he noticed the crowds were quickly growing. Some voices sounded concerned, others excited. Either way, it was disturbing to think how many people might be against the transgenics. He really didn't want to picture all these people, aligned against his family and at the gates to Terminal City, shouting for their death.

The crowed started to press in on him, and Everett couldn't help but think about how many of the problems humans had were the fault of pretty much everyone but transgenics. It was the human government that had failed them and continued to fail them. The government restricted them couldn't fix the flow of supplies, and couldn't or wouldn't help the people who really needed it. Everett half-wondered if the humans would hate transgenics quite as much if the standard of living was still the same as it had been before the Pulse.

He sighed as he glimpsed a protestor, a woman who was probably moderately attractive on normal occasions. But her face was twisted with pain and fear, highlighting stress and worry wrinkles. He brown hair looked slightly greasy to his keen sight, probably because of the shampoo shortage that had been going on for the last week. Which meant there'd probably be a surplus of shampoo next week. That was just the way things worked here in Seattle.

Why had they decided to stay here again?

He was at the central location for the filming now; all the top members of Telic were gathering on a stage in the middle of the crowd, readying for their televised speech. Telic was a name that Jones had come up with; it came from the word that meant something about pleading or asserting a cause, something like that. Everett hadn't really been very interested in the details.

"Mark, my man, you're here." Everett forced a smile on his face as Cole clapped him on the back once Everett had managed to get through the guards and behind the stage.

"'Course I'm here. Where else would I wanna be?" Anywhere else but there.

Cole chuckled and surveyed the crowd with satisfaction. "It's good to see so many people here," he said. "I mean, we know there's people out there who support us, but it's one thing to just sort of suppose, and another things to see it." It was scary. It was another thing to see how many people were against the transgenics.

"It certainly is quite a turnout," Everett said noncommittally.

"It's awesome," Cole said, grinning, "I mean, Jones was expecting a crowd, but nothing like this." He laughed and shook his head. "And after this, there'll be even more support for us. Jones has got footage and everything."

"Footage of trannies?" Everett asked. He hadn't heard about this.

Cole shrugged. "I guess, that's what Jones said it was. He's going to air it during the broadcast."

Everett nodded and managed a smile. There was no way that Jones could have gotten any incriminating evidence on the transgenics, mainly because no one had done anything incriminating lately besides steal a few necessaries from some rich houses.

A hush fell over the gathered crowd, and Everett turned his head to see Jones walk to the middle of the stage, in the center of the TV cameras. Why all these news stations were humoring Jones, Everett could only guess. They had either been bribed or the news was slow this week; why not pick on the transgenics, something everyone loved to hate?

"Brothers, sisters, humanity," Jones began, his voice quiet but insistent, as always, "A danger is growing in our midst, unchecked and unrecognized…"

As Jones talked, Everett looked around at the crowd, trying to gauge their reaction to the words of Telic's leader. Most of them were nodding and every now and then there would be a shout of encouragement. How could all of these people be so easily fooled by Telic and their hate slogans and propaganda? Just because someone told you something was evil and bad, did that mean you believed them, especially when you had the freedom to refuse whatever they thought?

Back in Manticore, Everett had followed orders because otherwise they would slice him up on an exam table and use his spare parts for other transgenics or experimentation. He was expensive, but he was replaceable, so refusing an order could result in death within a matter of moments. So he had followed orders, believed what Manticore told him, hadn't questioned much; he had been an exemplary soldier and had never once had to be reconditioned, even though with each outside mission, he became less loyal to Manticore. He did what he had to to survive, and that was it.

But these people, they were born free, or at least there wasn't always a gun pointed at the back of their heads. They could have chosen to not believe what the Telic group was spouting and actually get to know some transgenics before they decided all of them were evil and needed to be exterminated.

"Telic is going to end the threat before it becomes too big to for the government to handle." He gestured towards the east, toward Sector 7 and Terminal City. "They're breeding in there, multiplying, becoming stronger. The government's trying to placate them; the government knows what they're capable of. It's time we knew that too!"

Cries of "kill the trannies" and "death to mutants" rose from the crowd just as Everett's cell phone began to vibrate. He put his hand over his pocket, wondering who would be calling right now and why. Most of the people who had his cell phone number knew very well where he was right now.

Everett's eyes widened as he realized the only reason why they would try to call him in the middle of this broadcast, with him standing right beside the stage. Mona was eight months along, and damn it!

As nonchalantly as possible, Everett moved out of the crowd and down an alley. He would have to come up with some good excuse for this later, but there was no way he was going to let Mona go through this alone and miss his first child's birth just because he was on a mission with the transgenic-hating crazies.

When he finally reached an empty place, his phone was ringing for the second time. With a final glance to make sure that no one was hanging around, he flipped open the cell and pressed it to his ear. "Hello?"

"Hey!" It was Robin, sounding both excited and concerned, "You got away?"

"Yeah, what is it?" he asked, wanting to get straight to the point. He started walking towards a place where he could exit into the sewers.

"It's Mona," Robin said. In the background, he could hear people moving around, talking. "The baby's coming, so we're taking her over to the infirmary."

"I'm on my way," Everett said, breaking out into a run. He didn't blur since he was certain that would call attention to him, but he definitely went faster than a normal human jog.

"Whoa, calm down," Robin said. She could probably hear the wind whistling across the cell phone receiver. "Seth says it could be hours before she delivers, so you don't have to blur here if it's going to look suspicious."

Even with that knowledge, Everett wasn't going to take any chances. "All right, okay." He took a deep breath. "Can I speak to her?"

"Yeah, sure," Robin said. Even as she pulled the phone away from her ear, Everett could hear the others in the room.

"Is he coming?" Mona asked. She didn't sound like she was in pain, but she sounded like she was breathing faster. Damn, all he wanted to do was be there with her right now, and here he was, running down an alley in Seattle.

"Does he need help?" Alec asked, "We can go get him."

"No, he just wants to talk to Mona," Robin said.

The phone was jostled a little and then Mona's voice came on the phone. "Everett?"

"Hey, love, how are you? Are you okay?" he demanded, holding the phone so tightly to his ear that it looked like he was trying to become one with it. "I'm coming."

Mona laughed a little, and he could imagine her smiling. "I'm fine right now, Seth said so, so please, don't freak out."

"I'm not freaking out," Everett said, "I'm just…damn, I'm sorry I'm not there."

"It's okay, you're going to be here." She sounded like she had utter faith in him. That, or se was going to murder him if he wasn't there. "I think the baby will hold out for you."

"Don't strain yourself or anything," he said, making a face, "Just, just do what they tell you to, I'll be there soon."

"Yes, sir," Mona said, "I'll see you when you get here, all right?"

"All right," he said, not really wanting to get off the phone with her, "I love you."

"I love you, too," Mona said. There was another brief hand-off with the phone and then Robin was back on the line.

"I'll be there in a few minutes," Everett said, blurring now. He didn't care who saw him anymore. He'd deal with them if he had to.

"No problem, Everett," Robin said, "We'll take care of her until you get here; you just focus on getting here in one piece."

"Understood," Everett said. He closed the cell phone and put in into his pocket as he gave an extra burst of speed, racing for the nearest entrance into the sewer system. Time to go home.