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A/N: Thanks for the reviews, everyone! Love you all! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!

Ex Multus Familia

Chapter 6

"All right, I'm heading out for real this time," Robin said. She was standing at the door to their new apartment, zipping up her jacket. Behind her, Sidda was sitting on the couch with Taylor in her arms.

"Really? Because I know you probably forgot to tell me one more thing about taking care of Taylor that I already know," Sidda quipped. Robin made a face at her, and Sidda sighed. She didn't mean to get snarky, but she hated it when she was left behind because of an injury. It made her irritable, and when she was irritable, she tended to take it out on nearby persons, especially those she knew well. Design flaw.

"Sorry," Robin said, sighing, "I know that you know, I'm just trying to remember what all we need, and I keep remembering things for Taylor."

"You're putting off meeting up with your thieving partner," Sidda said. She tickled Taylor's chin, and the baby giggled. "That's right, littlest lovely, your mama doesn't want to be with your daddy. She's afraid she'll actually like him."

"Sidda, don't tell her that!" Robin's eyes were wide, probably because Sidda had hit the nail on the head, or so Sidda thought.

"Robin," Sidda said, looking up at her best friend, "She's a four-week-old. How much is she going to understand?"

"She's transgenic, so I have no idea," Robin said, "Maybe she's a super genius."

"I love Taylor, but I'm going to have to say no to that one," Sidda said, grinning at Robin, "Maybe when she's older, but not at a month."

"And I am not afraid to go with Seth," Robin said, fiddling with her jacket, "I'm just nervous about going out into Seattle again."

"I never said you were afraid to go with him," Sidda said, her head cocking to the side. A smile spread across her face. "But I will now, since you basically just admitted it."

"Sidda!" Robin said, "You're completely awful."

"Not apologizing," Sidda said, "I was born awful."

Robin rolled her eyes and walked over to their counter. She picked up a slip of paper and showed it to Sidda. "This has Seth's cell phone number on it and the number for HQ. If you need anything, call someone. Don't go out for it yourself. You're babysitting, and you need to rest your leg."

"My leg's fine," Sidda replied, scowling. She froze her face into a smile and jiggled her right leg. The dull ache that had been eating at her since that morning turned into a fiery pain that rushed across her calf and up her leg. "I'm. Fine."

"Sure," Robin said with that I-know-you're-lying-but-I'll-humor-you look that she reserved for Sidda. Sidda hated that look. "Just stay here with Taylor, okay?"

Sidda looked down at Taylor as if regarding her as a co-conspirator. "Taylor, don't you want to go out and have some fun? Maybe antagonize some Ordinaries? Give the sector cops a run for it?" The blue-eyed baby that looked exactly like a balanced mix of Seth and Robin gave her such an innocent, giggly look that she had to smile back. "I'm guessing that's a no."

"A definite no," Robin echoed from the door that she was holding open. Oh, look, she was almost out the door. Maybe she would actually leave this time. "You'll go next time, Sidda, promise. I'll see you later."

"Later," Sidda said. Robin waved and closed the door, leaving Sidda and Taylor alone in the almost bare apartment. Sidda leaned back into the couch and sighed as the pain in her leg started to dull. Okay, maybe trying to prove that she wasn't injured when she was wasn't the best idea…

Taylor made little baby noises as Sidda put her down on the light pink blanket that was laid out on the couch cushion beside her. Someone downstairs was playing Celtic music; the voices of flutes, drums, and penny whistles drifted up from the thin floorboards and into their apartment.

"Maybe your mom will bring us back a CD-player or something," Sidda said as she picked up the book that was propped up on the arm of the couch, spine cracked open. "Of course, music will fall beneath the necessity of home-decorating, so we may have to wait for the next expedition

Taylor only blinked and made a valiant effort to grab her own toes. Sidda smiled and curled up on her half of the couch, holding the book open with one hand while she tickled the baby with the other. She had just gotten comfortable when someone rapped on the door. Huffing, she put the book back down and glanced at Taylor.

"Your mother…" She looked back to the door. "Let yourself in, Robin, I didn't lock the door. No need."

"Some people might not agree," said a smooth, now-familiar voice as the door swung open. Sidda eyes widened and then narrowed as Alec walked in, his hazel eyes finding hers. "Ordinaries would say you were crazy."

She scooped Taylor into her arms and stood up, her gaze still trained on the male X5. Eleven at night seemed an unlikely time to be making a social call, even in Terminal City. "Not to be intolerably rude, but what're you doing here?"

"Babysitting the babysitter." He grinned and nodded his head back to the door. "Your roomie told me that you would probably try to make an escape and asked me to keep an eye on you. Then I decided to one-up her and physically make sure you stay put."

"So, what, you're going to sit on me?" Sidda asked, putting her free hand on her hip. Not that she minded the presence of such a fine male specimen, even if he was a womanizer, but she hated that he had already gotten it into his mind that she needed a guard dog. It only made her want to go out more. Taylor's head bounced against her chest, reminding her that she couldn't go anywhere anyways.

"Sitting on you…" Alec rubbed his chin, and Sidda noticed that there was a couple days worth of scruff on his face. Looked like Terminal City needed some razors. "Sounds like a solid idea if I'm desperate, but I'll try to be more creative than that."

"You'd need to be if I was actually determined to go out," Sidda said. She smirked at her and bounced Taylor gently. "I'm something of an escape artist."

Alec nodded. "I'll remember that." He walked over and ran his hand along their counter. He looked at her, his eyes traveling to her injured leg. "Hey, I meant to ask you at lunch, but how's your leg?"

"As fine as it can be with a hole in it," Sidda replied, wishing she could hide the whole damn leg, "I can't even feel it."

"Yeah, I can definitely tell that by the gritted-teeth look on your face," Alec said. He motioned toward the couch. "Why don't you sit down, get comfy, stop being a soldier for a minute."

"Have you sat on our couch?" Sidda asked. She glanced back over her shoulder at the poor thing. It did its job as a piece of furniture but the plaid behemoth had definitely seen better days. "Those springs have no mercy. And the cracks between the cushions eat more than coins."

"What, your couch feasts on flesh?" Alec asked with a dry laugh.

"Actually, no, it's the soul-eating variety," Sidda replied, a grin dancing across her face. "Great for Dr. Faustus, but no so awesome for the majority of the population." She winked at him, expecting a witty response. She was enjoying having a new verbal-sparring partner.

Alec's eyes drifted to her face, a shadow flashing across his features. There was grief in his eyes; she had only seen glimpses of it before, hidden in the dark green and gold, but now it was prominent, fresh.

"Are you all right?" she asked, taking a half-step toward him. She didn't know if she should touch him or not, so she kept her hands to herself.

The shadow passed as quickly as if had come, and he rolled his shoulders as if ridding himself of the emotion. "Yeah," he said, attempting a smile, "It's nothing." He brushed past her and lifted her book from where she had left it on the couch. "What're you reading?"

Sidda was starting to realize that he had a bad habit of switching topics. "Little Women. I picked it up from the way-too-small library over in HQ," she said as she walked over to his side, trying to keep her limping to a minimum. Her leg was still aching even though she was trying to cover it up. "You guys really need to expand your selection beyond Nancy Drew and Archie comics."

"Yeah, I'll put that on Honey-Do list. Right underneath don't die and save the city," Alec said. He thumbed through the book, not really looking at it. Sidda guessed that he wanted to distract himself from whatever he didn't want to think about. She wasn't going to press the issue.

"Shouldn't save the city go before don't die?" she said, heading back towards a light-hearted conversation. "Or do those two go hand in hand?"

"Still trying to figure that one out." He handed the book back to her and at the same time gave her a gentle shove. She hissed as her leg hit the edge of the couch, and she crumpled into the cushions, Taylor safely in her arms.

She glared up at him. "Not fair." He had maneuvered her into this position, just so he could force her to sit down.

He smirked as he picked up Taylor's blanket and sat down beside her, the blanket bunched up in his hands. "Your leg would thank me, if it could."

"Whatever…"

"So, tell me about your girly book," he said, tossing Taylor's blanket across the back of the couch. "Is it about midget girls or something?"

"No," she said, making a face. "It's about these four normal-sized sisters who…well, it sorta follows them through their lives, I think. I haven't really gotten very far." She punched him gently in the shoulder when he started snickering. "Oh, stop it, it's probably a great book."

"Wow, Sidda," he said, taking the book from her hand. He shook his head and rapped his knuckles against the cover. "I can't find the right words to tell you how boring this book probably is."

"Hey, back off, you haven't even read it," she said, trying to grab it. He held it out of her reach.

"Neither have you. And, you know, I could probably get a good price for this. Looks really old, it's in good shape, hardbound," he said, appraising eyes studying the embossed cover.

"You are not selling that book," Sidda said. She looked down at Taylor who was half asleep and then glared back up at him. "I haven't even read it yet."

He sighed and handed the book back to her. "Give me a TV and about 50 channels, and I'll have more fun than you and your books any day."

"Doubtful," she replied. She dropped the book over the side of the couch, far from Alec's reach.

He raised an eyebrow. "You really like reading that much?"

"Yeah," Sidda said. She smiled and played with the tiny decorative buttons on Taylor's purple onesie. "I got my name from a book."

"Huh. And here I thought Sidda was an original creation." Alec grinned and leaned back into the couch, making himself comfortable. Sidda sighed. Well, he was here now, so she supposed telling him a bit of her story couldn't hurt. There wasn't really a need to hide anything from him.

"It took me a couple months to decide what to call myself," she said, "I didn't want to just pick any old name."

"What'd you tell people to call you before you decided?"

"I went by the name I used on my last mission. It was a really long mission so I was already used to answering to it." Heat warmed her cheeks, and she could imagine the rosy blush that was overtaking her cheeks.

Alec nudged her with his elbow. "And this name was?"

"No. You'll laugh," she replied, the blush creeping towards her ears. It was an awful name, at least for her.

"Yeah, probably, but you still have to tell me."

"No, I don't."

"I've used some stupid names, too," he said. He started counting them off on his fingers. "Let's see, I was Ace Gorten, Lincoln Thomas, and oh, man, I was Fergus Abernathy once." He cringed at the memory, his face contorting with disgust. "There is no way you can beat a name like that."

"Fergus Abernathy?" She lifted her hand to her face to cover her smile, but it wasn't enough to keep the laughter out of her eyes. "You're making that up."

"It was a mission in Northern Ireland. I had almost erased it from my memory." Alec crossed his arms and proceeded to pout, his lower lip poking out. "Okay, now you have to tell me since you made me relive that not-so-happy time in my life."

"Fiiiiine," Sidda said. She avoided looking at Alec and watched Taylor's serene face instead. "It was Mary Josephine."

His pout changed to a smirk, but he didn't start guffawing or anything. "Not terrible. Sounds…Catholic."

"It is."

Alec nodded. "It doesn't fit you." He reached out as if to play with a bit of her short hair but dropped his hand and looked toward the window, a confused twist to his lips.

Sidda noticed the halted gesture and pulled Taylor closer. She thought she had pinned Alec correctly as a womanizer. What had stopped him from playing with her hair? It would have been a perfect flirting technique right there…maybe he wasn't very good at womanizing. "I know. I switched to Sidda pretty soon after reading Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya-Sisterhood. The main character's name was Siddalee…and I liked how it sounded."

"So your name is really Siddalee?"

"Yeah, but no one but Robin really knows that," Sidda said. She wasn't even sure why she had told him, it wasn't like it was need to know information.

"I like it. Siddalee." He rolled the name around on his tongue, and Sidda stopped herself from shivering. She didn't like how much she enjoyed it when he said her name. He turned his face toward her and smiled. "Now that fits."

"I thought so."

Taylor gave a whimpering cry, making her presence known. Sidda hummed a couple counts from the lullaby that Robin always sang to the baby, but Taylor started whining louder, bordering on a true cry.

"I don't think that's working," Alec said, smirking at Sidda. Taylor let out a wail, and he laughed. "Maybe you should try something else."

"She's tired," Sidda said. The blush climbed back into her cheeks, turning them strawberry. "She won't stay asleep unless someone sings her lullaby to her. She only dozes when you hum it…" Oh, she so didn't want to sing in front of Alec.

"A lullaby? Where the hell did you guys learn a lullaby?" Alec's eyebrows met in a wry expression. "I know Manticore wasn't big on the warm and fuzzy parts of childhood."

"We were out of Manticore for a while before Taylor was born, you know," Sidda said. She stood up and started to pace their small living room, cradling the baby closer. Taylor didn't stop crying, but she started whining instead of wailing. "Robin got a liking for musical movies, and she memorized a lullaby from one of them. Taylor's never gone to bed without it."

Alec grinned. "Do I get to hear this lullaby?"

"I just might kick you out," Sidda said, her cheeks scarlet. She liked being the center of attention, but not for her singing. And especially not in front of a guy.

"Come on, I won't make fun," Alec said, "I might join in if I know it."

"You sing?" Sidda stared at him incredulously. Alec spread out on the couch where she had been and put his arms behind his head for a cushion.

"I don't know, I never tried," he said. "So maybe I won't."

Sidda chewed her bottom lip and looked down at Taylor. She really didn't want to sing right now.

"Sidda, I swear I won't laugh or anything. I won't even look at you."

"All right…but you can't tell anyone about this," she said, pinning him with a scowl.

He closed his eyes and a smile tweaked his lips. "I won't."

Sidda watched him for a moment, paranoia making her think that he had some kind of recording device. Maybe she could go into one of the back rooms…but with the thin walls and transgenic hearing, he would hear her anyway. Sighing, she started humming the intro to the strange, haunting melody that Robin had chosen months before Taylor was born.

Her voice quaked through the first few notes. "A gentle breeze, from Hushabye Mountain softly blows over Lullaby Bay…" She locked her eyes on Taylor's face and pretended Alec wasn't there. The song flowed easily from her now, but she kept the notes quiet and calm, sending Taylor into a deep sleep. "…So close your eyes on Hushabye Mountain, wave goodbye to cares of the day. And watch your boat from Hushabye Mountain sail far away from Lullaby Bay."

Taylor's eye's slowly closed and soon she was still and slumbering. Sidda glanced at Alec; he looked asleep too. With careful steps, she took Taylor back to Robin's room and laid her down on the single bed. She made a nest of pillows around the sleeping baby before heading back into the living room.

"Nice song," Alec mumbled, and she jumped, startled. She turned to him and noticed that his eyes were opened into hazel slits.

"Thanks," she said, looking away and trying not to be flattered or embarrassed. "Robin chose it."

He sat up and yawned, a sleepy cast to his face as he looked up at her. Maybe he really had napped for a minute there. "So, why don't you have your own little bundle of joy? I thought it was an X5 female requirement. Or was your partner limp?"

"Nothing as crude as that," Sidda said as she slipped into the empty space on the couch that he had provided for her. "It actually goes back to the Mary Josephine thing."

"You couldn't breed because of religious reasons?" Alec asked, humor chasing away the sleepiness, "Nice excuse, but somehow I don't think Manticore would've flown with that."

"Actually, they instigated it," she replied. Her gaze traveled to the dirty window as her mind pulled up a year's worth of memories. White marble statues, ancient yet pristine, the deep, warm brass chime of the bells in the morning, the smell of the gardens warmed by the summer sun, the feel of the cold stones beneath her knees when she knelt to pray…she could still feel the cool meadow breeze on her cheek. And the weight of the ever-present Glock hidden beneath her novice habit.

"Hey, hey, Sidda, you can't just stop at that." Alec's voice brought her back to reality. His hazel eyes were on hers, probably realizing that she was shifting through memories. "Now I'm curious."

Sidda pulled her legs up onto the couch and sunk her toes into the supposedly soul-eating crack between two of the cushions. She let her gaze travel along the floorboards as she thought about that last mission. "I was on a deep cover solo assignment in a convent over in Italy."

"Huh. I didn't think Manticore had anything against the Pope."

"They didn't," she said, rolling her eyes. She didn't bother to correct him that the Pope lived in the Vatican, not a random convent. "They had something against an ex-Manticore geneticist gone nun."

"A nun?" Alec's eyebrows curved upward as he snickered. "Ironic."

"Gets better. She was actually the Mother Superior over there."

Alec snorted as he played absently with the edge of Taylor's blanket. "Well, wouldn't want to stop meddling with people's lives just because you had a change of occupation, now would you?"

"More like a change of heart."

"Manticore geneticists are heartless," Alec said. Hot bitterness ran through his voice, and Sidda looked at him, taking in the darkness on his face as he glared at the opposite wall. "Can't really change something that wasn't there."

"She wasn't like other geneticists there, then, I guess," Sidda said. It was hard to reconcile Mother Maria Clare's kind, wrinkled face with the hard faces of the scientists at Manticore. Those soft hands that held hers at the dinner table, the eyes that lit up when the blood-red poppies appeared in May, the way she smelled like peppermint, chocolate and sunset. She tried to imagine what Maria Clare would look like in a white lab coat, answering to the name Katherine Mason…no. Sidda rested her chin on her knees and sighed. "Even you would have had to like her."

"Doubt it," Alec scoffed. "Besides, she was your mission, right?"

"Yes," Sidda said, "I was embedded with the other novices and told that I should try to find out if she was telling anyone information about Manticore before killing her."

"How long were you with them?"

"A year," she said softly, "From August 2019 to until after the breeding program started in September last year."

Alec let out an appreciative whistle. "Damn. That's really deep cover."

"They didn't want anyone to suspect me," Sidda said, "And I made sure no one would doubt quiet, lovable, innocent-looking Mary Josephine, especially not the Mother Superior."

"Not like you look like much of a threat anyway," Alec said, "You're probably the smallest X5 I've ever seen."

"5'2" is exactly four inches under the average height for an X5 female," Sidda said, rattling off the fact that was ingrained into her brain. She flicked at a piece of lint on the couch. "I was engineered to look harmless, the concept being that no one would ever consider me a threat."

"They did a good job," Alec teased. Sidda only glared at him. "So how'd your mission turn out?"

"I…I stayed too long," Sidda said, hesitating. It was hard to talk about this…She thought about glazing over the details, but Alec seemed truly interested, and she found that she couldn't stop herself from telling him everything. He was oddly disarming. "I got to know my objective, and she didn't seem…I didn't think she deserved to die."

"You let her live."

She could feel his gaze burning on her face, but she couldn't look up. Absently, she picked at the arm of the couch. "I just...She was kind to me. She loved everything and everyone at the convent." Sidda closed her eyes as hot tears threatened to spill onto her cheeks. "It was easy to pretend that she loved X5-638 when she loved Mary Josephine so much. I used to sit at her feet, and she'd brush her fingers though my hair. It was long back then, wavy..." She ran her fingers absently through her now short hair. She couldn't stand it long anymore. "I was trusted, so I had little contact with Manticore. I felt like the convent was more of a home than I had ever had."

"Did you tell her?" Alec asked, his voice thick.

Sidda nodded. "Yeah. She was frightened, but she understood. Way too well." Soldiers don't cry. Ever. No tears, 638! God, would she ever get Manticore out of her head? "She said she didn't hate me, that I was just doing my job. I told her that we had to figure something out, but she said it could wait until morning." Sidda wrapped her arms tighter around her legs, her forehead resting on her knees. "One of the sisters found her the next morning. She had accidentally overdosed on sleeping pills, or at least that's what they told us."

"Sidda…"

She lifted her head and let her face harden into the schooled Manticore expression. She shouldn't have told him all this, but she already had, so she might as well continue. "I don't know why she did it. Maybe she was afraid of me, or maybe she thought she was sparing me the pain." She dug her fingers into her pants legs. "I always think about what if I'd stayed with her, if I hadn't left. I got soft in that convent. Maybe if I hadn't she'd still be alive…"

"Or she would have been dead sooner," Alec said. His hand moved carefully across her tense shoulders, as if he was unsure of himself. When she didn't fight him off, he pulled her to him, her small body fitting comfortably into his side. Sidda stiffened. She hadn't been this close to a guy since…a while. But sitting this way with Alec felt right, natural. She relaxed but hesitated before letting her head lean against his shoulder.

"I left that day and went back to Manticore, victorious, yet again," she said, her voice dull. "When I got back, I was put into Debriefing. I didn't know about the breeding program until Manticore was burned to the ground."

"Is that when you found Robin?" His warm breath rustled her hair.

Sidda made an affirmative noise. "I don't know why, but we just stayed together, heading west until we hit Hoquiam." She gave a small, tentative smile. "She was a part of the breeding program, as you can tell."

"Who was her partner?"

Sidda snorted. "Oh, no you don't. I'm not telling."

"Fine, but I'll find out eventually," Alec said with certainty. There was comfortable silence for a moment, and he shifted underneath her, his arm still draped over her shoulders. "So you don't know who your partner was supposed to be?"

"No," Sidda said, glad they were moving away from the topic of the convent. It seemed like Alec could actually be skilled in guiding the conversation into new topics if he felt like it. "And I don't mind not knowing. At least then I have more of a choice in the matter."

Alec chuckled. "I don't know, a lot of the X5s here seem pretty content with their breeding partners."

"Who's yours?"

"Max, I guess," Alec said noncommittally.

Sidda turned to gape at him, her eyes wide. "Are you serious? And you can't guess, you have to know. And why aren't you with her? Did she have your kid?"

Alec put his hand to her mouth, quieting the torrent. "Can I answer those before you ask more?" When she nodded, still staring at him, he continued. "For one, yes, I'm serious. Two, that's complicated."

"Why?"

Alec sighed and rubbed his temple with his left hand. "It's just…I don't know. Manticore assigned us as breeding partners, but it was a last minute thing, and it was actually a mission for me. I was supposed to help her escape and kill her boyfriend, Eyes Only, yada yada."

Sidda's eyebrows jumped halfway up her forehead. "You tried to kill Logan?"

"Actually, Max did it herself, I just watched to make sure it happened." Alec didn't sound ashamed or guilty, just factual.

"You obviously failed."

"Obviously," he said, rolling his eyes. "But anyway, there wasn't anything between me and Max. No mushy feelings or anything, and she really hated me for a long time."

"I can't imagine why." Her lips were twisted in a smirk.

"Sassy."

"Genetic defect."

He grinned as he kept answering her questions. "To answer number three, I'm not with her because I don't really feel that way about her, and Logan does. I mean, don't get me wrong, Max is awesome and everything, but I don't really like the occasionally bitchy, ice queen types. Especially when they think I have the IQ of a canary."

"Well, you probably are distracted by shiny objects."

"I'm ignoring that comment and jumping to question four, which the answer is a definite no." Alec shook his head. "Max wouldn't touch me except to kick me."

"Hmm, interesting reaction," said Sidda, "Bet that hurt your oh-so-manly feelings."

"No, not really. She was covered in outside cooties anyway," he said, affecting a snotty tone, "Never know what someone who's been on the outside for that many years may have picked up."

"Hmm, morals? A sense of the real world?" Sidda suggested. A yawn interrupted her list, and she realized that drowsiness had settled onto her eyelids. It had been a long day with an emotional twist at the end, and her injured body needed to rest.

Alec laughed and tapped his fingers against her shoulder. "Getting sleepy, Sidda?"

"Mmm, maybe," she said, "But I have to wait for Robin to get back. I don't like sleeping when I'm watching Taylor."

"Hey, I'm here," Alec said, "I can take care of the kid if she starts whining."

"I'd rather you just woke me up," Sidda said, "I remember what they said at lunch about kids not liking you."

"That's just Crystal, and she's picky," Alec said. He caught her arm and pulled her into his side again. She had moved away while they were talking about Max. She resisted for a moment then allowed herself to curl up beside him, her head resting against his shoulder. She fit there perfectly, her small body pressed against his tall form.

"Don't try anything or I'll kick you out," Sidda warned, but her words didn't sound half as threatening as she wanted them to when she started yawning halfway through.

Alec tousled her hair and let his hand rest on her arm. "Just go to sleep, Sidda."