I am not im_alemon or affiliated with that writer in any way, shape or form. She just ripped off my username. Thank you.

There was something just a little relaxing about pouring drinks every night. Maybe it was cause I was used to listening to Normal bitch every day about packages. I didn't have to bike my ass all over town to bartend either, which was a nice change of pace. But lets be honest, the only reason I ever even took that dead end job was cause it was a good way to case out places to rob later that night. I might give Alec a hard time about some of things he does but the truth was I started out just the same way. Only these days I steal from the bad guys. I'm like a modern day Robin Hood, stealin' from the rich and givin' to the poor. And by the poor, I mean me. What? Gettin' a good translation on ancient Minoan is pretty pricey these days.

Speakin' of dead languages the language guy finally called me back just to tell me what I already knew. Nobody had ever deciphered the entire Minoan alphabet. Logan had already given me that much info when I was still in Seattle. I needed a little bit more and for five grand you'd think the smart guy could deliver. He said he was still working on it but I wasn't holding my breath. It was probably just a bunch more gibberish anyways. Sandeman talked a lot of smack about the end of the world but he never actually said anything we could use.

For now I was forgetting about it. That's where mixing drinks came in handy. Tonight was a little busier than usual. The place wasn't exactly classy but we had our regulars and once they got to know you they were good tippers. Plus, I had to run my phone number scam a few times. It's a classic and I knew that somewhere OC would be proud of me.

I couldn't help but notice Zack suddenly get up and move towards some girl. They started talking like they knew each other and I narrowed my eyes trying to zoom in on them but customers kept interrupting me. I thought about tellin' them to shut up and chill for a minute especially after I saw her hug him. Who was that?

It was getting harder to concentrate but after what seemed like forever it finally died down a little bit, just in time for Zack to bring his friend to the bar. I narrowed my eyes as I looked at her. Was that....?

"Jondy?"


(Open to Zack and Jondy.....)

"It's all in there. Five Gs." I smirked at the stuffy British guy as I slapped a big ass wad of Benjamins into the palm of his hand. Crossing my arms over my chest I watched as he arched an eyebrow at the envelop but didn't bother opening it and countin' it. "Wow. Trusting." I remarked.

"You haven't given me reason to distrust you. Yet." He clarified as he placed the money easily on the counter before grabbing some magnifying glass lookin' thing. "Now." He nodded. "Where are the markings?"

"On my back." I answered as I pulled my hair to the side and over one shoulder so that he could get a better look. His fingers were cold as we he pulled the material of my shirt down a little so he could see what was just another temporary tattoo looking thing that had mysteriously appeared on my skin.

"Interesting. It looks like-"

"Ancient Minoan, I know." I cut him off, shortly. I had to knock over a mcmansion for that kind of cash. Bartending might pay the bills but it didn't do jack when it came to payin' off smart guys to read the mumbo jumbo that kept poppin' up on my body.

"If you already know, why are you talking to me?" He asked me dryly.

"Look, Wesley. I heard from a friend of a friend that you were the go to guy for decoding old dead languages. I just need you to tell me what it says."

It wasn't just the money that was trippin' me out but the whole damn picture. It was a little too familiar and it was makin' me a little too homesick. Things were the way they were for a reason, I got that and I knew that some things just weren't meant to be. It didn't make it any better, but hey some days are worse than others.

"This may take a few days to decipher." He said as I heard him snap off a round of pictures before I defensively pulled away from him and shrugged my shirt back into place. "I phone you then and let you know what I've found out."

"Thanks. You do that and you get the rest of your money." I promised him as I walked over to the chair in his living room and grabbed my jacket, pulling it on.

"It's very strange that you would get a tattoo of something and you don't even know what it means." He said to me as I headed for the door. I paused in the doorway for only a second before looking back at him.

I wondered briefly what the ultimate plan was, the something "Biblically bad" that was gonna happen. Not only was my life made of total puzzle pieces but now so was my body. Maybe one day I'd actually figure out what the hell Sandeman wanted when he put me together.

"Yeah, well. You know us kids, always doin' something crazy." I smiled at him wryly before I disappeared around the corner.

Life is a Soundtrack
Rules:
1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, etc)
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play
4. For every question, type the song that's playing
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button
6. Don't lie.

( here )

"I needed to talk to you, so I came by your apartment...and I saw him leaving. I--I mean, if I've got it wrong, just say so. Tell me it's not true."

"I can't. It's over. We're done. Get used to it."


Standing at the edge of the Space Needle I folded my arms over my chest and watched the city lights below, just like I found myself doing almost every night for the past few years. It was strange, but Seattle looked a lot different when you were hovering above it, because than you could pretend that the world wasn't full of dirty cops and politicians, people desperately trying to control a world that had broken a long time ago. Then you could pretend that everything didn't hurt so much the minute you set foot down below, you could pretend that it wasn't the goal of the human race to inflict as much pain on themselves as they could.

Screw it. I wasn't human. Well, technically I guess I was but really I was just another genetic freak waiting to be caught on the Channel 3 news. Waiting for the government to track down their favorite pet project and put an end to it. A world that created me and my brothers and sisters and then when the going got rough? That was it. How could I even pretend to tell Joshua that it was better for him to say goodbye to Annie when I didn't even have the strength to do the same with Logan? That was part of the problem though wasn't it? Before Manticore was destroyed I didn't need it, the only thing I needed was myself and the rest of the world could go to hell in a handbasket for all I cared. Sure, I had Kendra, OC, Sketchy and Herbal to look after but not the way I looked after my brothers and sisters now. Because in the end it was my fault. My fault that the world was this way.

That was an awful lot of burden to lay on myself. After all, I wasn't the terrorist that set off The Pulse. I was only a little girl when the world went straight to Third World Countryville. Sometimes I wondered if things would be different for me if The Pulse had never happened. I wouldn't have to worry about checkpoints probably but I had the feeling it wouldn't matter because people were people and just like I told Joshua? They were all afraid of what they couldn't understand. I thought I was doing the right thing by destroying Manticore, helping all of the other transgenics escape. I never even stopped to think about the consequences of that. I knew there'd be the running and hiding but I'd been doing that my entire life. I just didn't think that some of the transgenics wouldn't be smart and lay low. Did they want to die? Hunted down like monsters? Gunned down in the streets? All they did was bring more attention to us and pretty soon there wouldn't even be anything left.

I was so tired of hiding. Tired of lying. Just tired.

And then there was Logan. Without him I wasn't sure that I would have ever been brave enough to take Manticore on the way I had. After all, what did I really care about the rest of the transgenics that weren't in my unit? Brin, Tinga, Zack, Ben....we all managed to escape and we'd been smart enough to lay low. But really how far had that gotten us? Brin had been reindoctrinated, brainwashed to be Manticore's finest soldier. I had no doubt that now she was out in the world it wasn't easy to make the transition again. Tinga and Ben were dead. Zack was a walking science experiment with no memory of his past. No memory of me. Sometimes I was sure the only thing that kept me going was his heart pounding beneath my chest. Logan and Zack, they made me brave when all I wanted to do was hide in the shadows, make money the only way I knew how. By stealing what belonged to other people. I couldn't care before and now I cared too much. There was no happy middle ground, only an ache in my borrowed heart and the broken city at my feet.

I said goodbye to Zack and when they rolled him past where I was sitting and I pretended to not know him? I thought that was one of the hardest thing I'd ever had to do. That was until I lied to Logan about my relationship with Alec. I knew it was the only way to protect him. I did it for the same reasons I said goodbye to Brin, to Ben, to Zack. Because it was for his own good. The problem with it all was that I had to lie to him because I knew that no matter how many times I nearly killed him he wouldn't be able to stay away from me. He would keep coming back and I would keep coming back until it was all too final. Until he was dead and that would be the end. I couldn't kill another person that I loved. I wouldn't.

I tried to find the message in the whole thing, the raison d'etre or whatever. I kept coming back to the same thing. Love sucks. Life was a whole lot easier when I didn't have any attachments, it was also a whole lot more lonely too. But what was this now? Finding myself alone at the top of my perch away from the world. It didn't matter if you loved too much or not enough because in the end you were still alone. I guess that's the point. I was meant to be this way.

"Nobody likes the man who brings bad news". -Sophocles

Angel had given me all the information that I needed. My mother was in trouble somewhere and he had just managed to get my brother out of the fire before he was burned too bad. That was at least fifty percent good news as far as I was concerned. Family had always been real important to me and that was before I even knew my real family. I'd spent years tryin' to find my mom and now I finally had answers, I just had to find her. But I never really stopped to think who my dad was or if I had any siblings. It just hadn't really occurred to me. Now I had the information and I didn't know what to do with it. Except come along for the ride obviously. What the hell else could I do? It seemed cut and dry to me.

Once Angel had given me the 411 I hopped on my bike and followed his car back to the motel he and Connor were staying at. By the time we were getting inside the sky was just starting to brighten a little bit. That wasn't no thing for me or even my brother, but I knew that Angel was a vampire which meant he was gonna be stuck inside all day long. That had to suck for him, I'm feelin' for the guy on the whole sunlight deal. Plus, knowin' that a lawfirm's been stealin' your swimmers for years to create a genetically enhanced superchild had to be a blow too.

My hands were in the back of my pockets as I followed Angel into the motel room. I was tryin' to be cool but on the inside I was sweatin' bullets. I couldn't help it, I never actually thought I would meet my brother. I always thought of Zack and Ben as brothers but we weren't really related I don't think. They meant so much to me but this was different. This was.....nothing because once we got into the room it was completely empty. I exchanged a worried glance with Angel as he moved to the bathroom to check in there while I went to the phone.

Sure enough there was a small pink post-it note on the little nightstand. Picking it up I frowned when I read it. Connor had needed some air so he had gone for a walk. I wasn't sure when he had left for his walk but I was sure that Angel wasn't gonna be happy about it. And now it was day so he couldn't exactly go running out there to find him. I could try, but I really wouldn't know what I was looking for. I had nothing to go and I'd never actually seen my brother.

"I've got some bad news." I said to Angel when he came out of the bathroom. Instead of telling him I just handed him the note and watched him read it.

Needless to say it didn't exactly go over well. Especially when the day dragged on and Connor still hadn't returned.

"You think he went back to the vampire?" I asked Angel as I started out the window, just waiting for the sun to disappear beyond the horizon.

"It's just a blackout because of the storm. I'm sure the power will be on before we know it." I assured Zack as I rummaged around in one of the drawers in my apartment for some candles. There was still a faint hint of light trickling in through the windows from the outside but the snow was coming down hard and fast which meant it was going to be a complete blackout before long. Finally I found what I was looking for. One fat purple candle that had been left in the apartment before I even moved in. I was gonna throw it away but now I was glad that I'd just thrown it in a drawer instead. Using a lighter I lit the wick of it and set it down on the cheap coffee table I'd managed to find at some thrift store up the street.

Now that we had light I drifted over towards the window and looked outside into the storm raging just beyond the wall. "Strange." I muttered to Zack. "Never thought I'd see a snowstorm in LA." Then again, this was the place where strange things happened. I used to think Seattle was totally whack back from my time but it turns out pre-Pulse Los Angeles was even weirder. It was hard to think that we were only a few short years away from going back to Third World Countryville up in this bitch. I was just starting to get used to living in a pre-Pulse world. But the Pulse was coming, some things just can't be stopped, not even if you know about it ahead of time.

Zack was being quiet and that was alright because I was just watching the storm. He was staying with me now since he didn't have any where else to go after breaking into the past just to find me. I wasn't really sure what was going to happen with that. Maybe if I could track down White he could tell us how to get home but White wasn't exactly big with the giving up information that I would find useful and I doubted that this time would be any exception. It looked like we were stuck.

Don't get me wrong. I was glad that Zack was here. It was nice to see a familiar face since Alec was busy with his brand new life. Still, if I had expected anyone to come through a portal back in time to find me it....wasn't Zack. As far as I knew, Logan hadn't even armed Zack with some way to bring me back to the right time. Maybe he trusted Zack to find a way to bring me back but as of right now? Neither one of us had anything to go on.

It makes me wonder if it's some kind of sign. Maybe I belong here now. I don't know. Maybe it's time to move on.

Alice came to a fork in the road. "Which road do I take?" she asked.
"Where do you want to go?" responded the Cheshire cat.
"I don't know," Alice answered.
"Then," said the cat, "it doesn't matter."

Ever since I was a kid all I'd heard about was the outside world and how fucked up it was. Filled to the brim with crooks, murderers and disease. Hey, I'm not sayin' they were wrong or anything cause the world is a fucked up place no matter which way you look at it. Still, it wasn't much for a kid to go on. Zack had made it pretty clear that eventually we were all gonna have to split up. The longer we stayed together, the better the chances were that Lydecker would track us all down and drag us back to Manticore. Still, I didn't expect to be separated from them so quickly. If it weren't for Hannah I might not have ever gotten away that night.

I didn't know where to go, didn't know what to do. Hannah was helping me but I had been taught from the beginning to never trust anyone, especially not in enemy territory. And that was what the whole world was, enemy territory. I didn't know a thing about it or how to get along in it. The minute Hannah turned her back I took off on her and left her with just as many questions over the years as I had. I should have trusted her back then but I didn't know any better.

Eventually I was found wondering around the streets. I was smart and fast and strong so I could have taken care of myself for an infinite amount of time but stealing food and trying to find abandoned buildings to squat in was wearing me down in the winter. Finally I just let social services take me in, telling them I had no memory of the one before I ended up on the streets so that they wouldn't be tempted to find my real "parents". Instead they put me with a foster family because I didn't know where else to go. The foster situation wasn't so bad for awhile and I had my foster sister Lucy to keep me company. It wasn't bad until Lucy's father would drink and then he would get violent and do things to Lucy. I would often hide underneath the hatch in the floor as I listened to her screaming for him to stop. I know I could have stopped him, I could have killed him. But I didn't want to get found out and I didn't know what else to do. So I ran again, and I left Lucy there with him. Not my proudest moment.

After what happened with the foster family I wasn't too comfortable with the idea of adults anymore. I made money where I could doing stupid little jobs and I eventually found a building that was under the protection of crooked cops that I had to pay off every month.

Like Alice, I didn't really know where I was going when I busted out of "Wonderland" but I'm glad that I got here.

"Oh. So how does this bitch work?"

I knew I was kind've out of line. After all, this was a house of God or whatever but I figured I'd just saved Father Destry's ass so he could turn a little bit of a blind eye to me. Besides, for as much as we had our own little version of the Tooth Fairy in the Blue Lady Manticore didn't really leave the option of theology open to it's soldiers.

"Are you here for a confession?" Father Destry asked me slowly, as if he was mostly scared that I was here and otherwise just confused as all hell. Couldn't really blame the guy. Gettin' kidnapped by a psycho X5 didn't really do much to calm anybodys nerves.

"Yeah. I guess so." I fidgeted a little, suddenly unsure of why I was here in the first place. It wasn't like I could talk about this with Logan, not with how he reacted to the whole Ben thing. Father Destry seemed like my best bet. Not saying he owed it to me or anything since I saved his life, but at least he saw first hand what Ben was really like. He might not have understood it but he saw it.

And I knew it didn't matter. He just seemed like the kind of guy who'd do it anyway. He was God's homeboy.

"You told me that God forgives everything last time I was here. That he can forgive things that we can't forgive in ourselves or in eachother."

"Yes, my child. God forgives all."

"What about murder? Does he forgive that?" I asked quietly, biting down on my lower lip. Was it murder? I'd killed Ben, but only because he begged me to. He couldn't stand the idea of going back to Manticore and I knew I'd never be able to live with myself if I was responsible for it. Was it really better for him to just be dead? They would have turned him into a lab rat, he would have spent the rest of his life strapped down and muzzled while Lydecker tried to figure out what went wrong with him.

But that wasn't the only memory I had of killing someone. I still remembered the words Ben had spat up at me. That I was a soldier, a hunter, a killer. He was right. Sometimes I did wake up with my heart racing, the taste of blood in my mouth. I just didn't have the courage to tell him that he had been right about me.

Father Destry seemed concerned about my question, or maybe I was just being paranoid at the long silence that had seemed to draw out between the two of us.

"I have seen some strange things in the past few days." He finally started. "Things I didn't want to believe, things that I don't understand. What I do understand is that God has a plan for all of us."

What I wanted to tell him was that God had nothing to do with it. Somebody had cooked me up in a test tube, I wasn't even human. But as much as I trusted Father Destry there was no reason to make him vulnerable with an overload of information. Poor guy had already seen enough of Manticore.

"Was it his plan that my brother go insane? His plan that I had to kill him?" The venom in my voice surprised only me, but I guess that shouldn't have been surprising at all. Swallowing hard I tilted my chin down a little bit remembering the Good Place. Was Ben there now?

"You killed him in order to save my life, many other lives. Perhaps the plan wasn't for him, but for you. God works...."

"...in mysterious ways. Yeah yeah. But here's the thing? It wasn't the first time I've killed someone, I was brought up to be different. I'm a soldier and..."

"It troubles you?"

"Yeah. It does. What happens next? I mean, I won't be here forever. Ben..." My voice cut off quickly before it strangled itself on sob stuck somewhere in my throat. I hadn't cried since I'd been in the woods and I wasn't planning on crying again either. I'd never forget what happened, I'd never forget the sound of Ben's neck snapping. "Where is he? Does he go to hell? Is he just dead? I need to know."

And it wasn't just Ben. It was Eva too. It was all the other soldiers I'd watched Lydecker and his followers at Manticore put down like animals. Like we weren't even people.

"Some would say that your brother's sins would mean that he was destined for hell. But God's power to forgive has no limits, there is room in the Kingdom of Heaven for all of God's creatures."

"Thank you, Father." And even though my search for answers had been in vain, there was a genuine gratitude. He didn't know it, but Father Destry had been the only one there for me when I needed something to hang onto. Maybe he was right when he first sat next to me in the chapel. Maybe I needed to unload all those secrets that were weighing me down. Well, not all of them but with Logan acting so strangely it was good to have someone in my corner. Even if it was the last corner I ever pictured myself in.

I was done, and I walked out of the confessional. Shut the door and slowly walked towards the front door.

I'd walked in with nothing and left with even less. Because I knew something Father Destry didn't know. Ben and I?

We weren't God's creatures.

It was supposed to be our big night. There we all were, standing outside Manticore's gates ready to put the heat on for my big sister. They killed her without a second thought and I knew they'd do the same thing to any one of us without a second thought and it was the last straw. Manticore was going down. I really wish that my reunion with my brothers and sisters could have been under better circumstances but let's face it. Nothing in life is ever that easy.

The lab was our first target. If they couldn't make any more transgenics than Manticore would have to shut itself down. No more little science experiments to teach tactics and logistics too. What would they do then? It would take them way too long to start all over again. Everything was going real smooth too. We were out in the field, trying to escape the X7s who were on our tail when all of a sudden I saw the one that looked just like me. Seriously, must've been the exact same genetic code cause that was me about ten years ago. She caught me off-guard and before I could blur out of the way I could feel metal in my chest. You'd think that would hurt pretty bad but the only thing I could think about was Logan when I hit the ground. And he was there, holding me. Not really sure if I hallucinated that part of if that was for real.

By the time I came too the queen bitch herself was standing over my bed, telling me about what Zack had done. How I'd been hit in the heart and the only thing that would save me was a transplant from another X5. So Zack put a gun to his head and donated his heart to me and that was the only reason I was still alive. Renfro made sure to rub that part in when she turned the heart rate monitor up so loud that all I could do was lay there and listen to his heart beating in my chest.

I had read and reread Angel's letter about half a dozen times and I was still stuck on one thing. I have a brother? A real honest to God brother. What was all that crap he was trippin' on before then? All that stuff about how vampires are shootin' blanks so they can't have kids unless they're genetically engineered apparently. Guess there were loopholes in everything, and I was about to find out about one of them myself. So my brother, was with my mother and my mother was hanging with another vampire still. I don't know a lot about vampires except for about Angel, but I do know that they wouldn't have vampire slayers if they weren't bad or whatever, right? Then what the hell was Faith doing with one?

Man, my head hurts.

Alec was still on walkabout trying to find White. I hate to admit it, but I kinda miss having the guy around. Yeah, he's loud and obnoxious and won't stop talking about the one night that I was in heat and we.... Even through all of that? It was nice to have someone around to talk to, who gets me. And I hate that I'm missin' that punk but I guess sometimes you just can't help it. He'd be back soon enough, once he got tired of looking around or once he found something. Either way I hoped he wasn't too busy drinking beers and nailin' hookers to actually get some work done.

Called Angel and got the address at whatever crib he's hangin' out in New Mexico. I guess that was where Connor was, my brother. Still feels weird to say that, even if it's just in my head. He was my honest to God brother, not like the guys who were in my unit. Ben and Zack. I'd always thought of them as brothers but they weren't really. Dunno why but I was nervous about meeting him. I had the feeling with everything that was going down we weren't just gonna sit around for some family dinner.

I tried not to think about it too hard as I got on my bike and headed to the address that Angel had left for me. I had to drive almost all day just to get there but once I was I felt a little more calm. I realized pretty quick that the address Angel had given me was an abandoned building set up against the desolate desert highway. There was nobody else around for miles. Parking my bike out front I'd only walked a few steps before I saw him walkin' out of the shadows.

"Hey." I nodded at him, feelin' like it'd been forever since I'd seen him last.


[Angel]

Every time I see a hospital bed I always think about Logan Cale. Can't help it, the guy just has this way of getting inside my head and turning me around. I used to think it was the whole guilt thing but then after spending enough time around Eyes Only I knew it was just him. From the minute I saw him there was just something there, ya know? Like this little spark. It didn't hurt that he seemed to know who I was even though I never had to tell him. Kinda clued him in when I busted into his crib to steal that Bast statue.

First time I met the guy he was all about saving the people, helping the downtrodden, blah blah blah. It just really wasn't my thing back then. The only thing I ever wanted to do was stay hidden. Disappear into this normal little life so that Lydecker and his posse wouldn't ever figure out where to find me. That was the goal and I was planning to stick to it. Which is why I shot him down when he asked me to help him out keeping this lady and her kid safe. Not like I wished any harm on them or anything, I just really didn't wanna get involved. Stay hidden, stay low to the ground and they'd never stick me back into another cage again.

Logan took my answer and then went ahead and did it himself. Like Joe Schmo's really gonna be able to do the job of an X5. That's Logan for you though, he doesn't always care about himself when there's hopeless to be helped, or whatever. Guy was so busy fighting the power, the power managed to pop him more than a few times. On TV of all things. Still remember standing around at Jam Pony with OC and Sketchy while they showed an aerial view of Logan Cale getting shot by government thugs.

I had to go and see him in the hospital. What? I said I wanted to stay hidden, I didn't say I didn't have a heart. He was pretty messed up by the time I got there. Doc said he'd never use his legs again, and in those moments standing over that hospital bed I knew that I was gonna get sucked into this cause. There was the guilt, and then there was just him. And at some point, I guess I figured it was just the right thing to do. My life was never the same after that.

I killed my brother.

I think somewhere I always knew that it would end that way. From the first time I saw the barcode printed on the back of that guy's neck. It wasn't Ben, Ben wasn't dead and for a second I hated the idea of relief. It was a relief that my brother wasn't dead but the evidence staring me right back in the face was that he was a killer instead. At first I didn't want to believe it. I wanted to think that maybe it was a game, another trick from Manticore trying to get the rest of the X5's to play nice and come back home. I wanted to believe that so fucking badly, I probably would have done anything for it to be true.

It wasn't enough, it was never enough. When I walked into the church and saw The Blue Lady I knew exactly what he was doing. He wasn't running from them anymore, he'd become one of them. Not like Brin had become one of them, an order-taking brainwashed soldier, but just a monster. Just the genetic freak we were all supposed to be. He was the reason everyone was afraid. What he became, what drove him to do the things he did. He was the reason I was afraid. We were all just ticking time bombs waiting to explode and I knew it. I just hoped my time wasn't up yet.

After I found the teeth in the pale alabaster hands I sat in the back, my back resting against the stiff wooden pew and I just waited. Because I knew Ben and I knew he'd be back to see Her. What used to be a beautiful dream, faith, hope was something I couldn't even look at anymore. It'd been twisted into something grotesque like a wicked fairytale. It sounded like my entire life. And just like I knew he would, he came back eventually. I don't know if it was to leave another offering or if it was just his own twisted way of praying to a goddess that had never protected us.

He ran. Of course he ran. I knew he would. I think we both also knew that I would catch up to him eventually and I did. I thought I had things under control when I found the priest, but leave it to Lydecker to constantly be one step ahead of us all. Ben wasn't exactly covering his tracks very well and I'm still not sure to this day what his goal was. Was he really testing the limits of The Blue Lady? Did he want to get caught? Maybe he just hoped in the end one of the people he tattooed and hunted down would get one leg up on him and end it all.

I didn't want to kill him, I just wanted to stop him. Some faraway hope that I might be able to save him. When did I become such a fucking martyr anyway? I guess the minute I found out that some of my brothers and sisters had actually managed to escape that dark night in '09. They were the only family I had, the only semblance of something entirely natural in my screwed up bizarro world. I didn't want to. He begged me. He'd rather die than go back to Manticore and I couldn't say that I didn't share that sentiment. I'd already broken his leg and there was no way I could carry him and manage to escape without getting us both caught. So in a way, he didn't even have to ask me. I'd already killed him on my own. No tears in my eyes when I broke his leg and they just seemed fake when I snapped his neck. Like I didn't even deserve them.

It was all for nothing. I killed my brother to stop a monster but when I was holding him in my arms asking him to tell me about the good place. The place where no one was ever punished? I knew I'd do it again.

Whatever it takes.

Way back in the day I would've died for any member of my squad in a heartbeat. Ben, Jondy, Tinga, Zack.... you name it and I would have done just about anything for them. I spent years searching for them and went so far as to get a PI on the case. In the end Ben died, Tinga died and then Zack died for me. Family is the most important thing in the world, my brother Zack taught me that. Later on I would have done it for OC or Sketchy or hell, even Alec. And as much as I didn't wanna be associated with the other transgenics (the ones that weren't made pretty) in the end I knew that they were family, and so I would have died for them too.

That's what I'm thinkin' about as I'm driving my new motorcycle down the interstate. Alec was still in New Mexico searching out leads on White while I was headed up to Seattle to see if I couldn't have word with the man responsible for it all. Figured Sandeman's still gotta be kickin' it somewhere where I can find him. I've got a mission a goal. Find Sandeman and get his ass to cure this genetic virus dealio. You know, the one that means I can't ever touch Logan without almost killin' the guy. Then all I needed to do was find White and make him open up another one of those portal thingies.

But I couldn't shake the thought of Angel out of my head. Not to mention my mother who was in trouble...somewhere. What kinda trouble? I had no clue, but if Angel seemed worried about it there was something to worry about. And yeah, maybe I was a little bummed that the guy just took off for some mysterious reason but it didn't change anything. He was still family, and he needed help.

"What the hell are you doin', Guevera?" I muttered to myself as I easily turned the bike around and started heading in the opposite direction.

Back to California.

What have I learned from my parents? The truth is, not much. It's not really their fault I guess, at least not my dad's fault. He didn't even know I existed so how was he supposed to know to ever come looking for me? I learned about vampires from him and really? If it hadn't been for Angel I would have never convinced Zack that we needed to bounce out of Manticore. At least future him did, which is something that I haven't exactly managed to tell him yet. How do you say hey dad, in a few years we're gonna be living in a third world country but it doesn't really matter cause you and Mom are gonna really be living in the basement of a secret government project. Also, you're gonna be insane.

I haven't learned anything from Faith. Hannah told me once that she fought to keep me but the older I get the harder it is for me to believe that. Especially since she's some kinda badass monster killer or something. If she is than you would've thought she'd be able to come and look for me. Guess that means I learned it's easier to blaze on your family than fight to keep them together.

Think I'm gonna head out of town. I gotta see if I can't find out more about White and this snake cult dealio. Maybe I can even track down Sandeman and get some answers from him about who I am and what it is I'm supposed to do. Maybe he'll be able to send me back to the right time with the cure so I can actually touch Logan again. Alec doesn't wanna go back with me and I can understand that but I'm hoping I can still get him to come for the ride with me, sure he wouldn't mind tracking down Sandeman. Angel hasn't been around lately and Cordelia told me he's got stuff to do. I get that, I've got stuff to do too. It's long past time that I got on that.

Y'know, I remember what life used to be like before the Pulse. Yeah, I was on the run cause I was just a kid and Manticore had it in their heads that they had to chase my ass down, but I still lived it. Guess things just look different when you're a kid, like you look at the world a different way or something. Whatever. It's not like I'm gonna sit around and get all contemplative about it, you'd just think that it wouldn't be so hard to adjust to living in 2007.

There's a lot of things to be said for 2007. First off? All the hot showers a girl could ever ask for. It's kinda nice not to have to boil a dozen pots of water just to shave my legs. And the alcohol? I've got no complaints there. I got used to the warm watered down crap they used to sell us at Crash but now my ass is getting seriously spoiled with the beer they have in 2007. You don't gotta practically murder someone or be a millionaire to get things like vegetables and chicken or a bottle of wine. There's a steady supply of Tryptophan anytime I want it. Check it out, I can even order it on the internet and get it delivered right to my apartment like magic. Yeah, if you let yourself get carried away 2007 almost seems like magic.

It's crazy I know, but I find myself missing my old insane life. No matter how much of a trip it was. Alec is here, and as much as I hate to admit it at least he makes me feel a little bit more at home in LA. I always thought Manticore was the freak center of the universe until I moved here. Everybody's a freak. Check it out, my dad's a vampire, my mom's a slayer and my half brother is....well, I don't really know what he is. Guess I could ask him when I meet him. The point is? I'm still surrounded by freaks but it's not the same thing. There's something missing. And it's not just my friends that I miss, and Logan. I find myself missing all kinds of stupid things. Like Jam Pony and Normal. Why the hell would I miss his dumb ass? I must be trippin'.

I went to see Logan. I know, it probably wasn't a good idea but I couldn't just let it go even though Alec tried to talk me out of it. Who ever thought he would be the voice of reason? Not that I listened to him, I just had to see him. And I did see him, and he was so young looking. That makes sense since he's got to be around seventeen. I wanted to say something to him, dunno what but something. I couldn't get myself to though, no matter how hard I tried. He looked straight up happy and I don't wanna mess with that. Let him hold onto a little of that happiness, cause sooner or later the shit is gonna hit the fan.

I'm not stupid or blind. Even if I can't find a way back to 2020, I'm gonna be living in a post-Pulse world sooner rather than later. You can't change the future just by going back to the past. Eventually the younger me is gonna bust out of Manticore, the world's gonna hit third world countryville, Logan's gonna pick up Eyes Only cause he's bitter about how hard the world sucks, and my parents are gonna be locked up in the dungeon underneath Manticore with the rest of the freaks.

I can't be too homesick. Cause eventually? I'm gonna be home again.

"Sleep with a dog and rise full of fleas"- Sarah Kane

By the time I got home I was kinda beat, but not so tired that I'd make a rare night of it and actually get some sleep for a change. I don't need a lot of sleep, one of the actual perks of being an X5. Not that we're all built like the Energizer Bunny or whatever but I never really needed a lot of rest. Angel hadn't been around lately and I didn't know where he'd gone, but I figure guy like that's probably got a lot of things going on. It's not like I really expected anything out of him anyways. At least, nothin' more than finding my mother. Wherever the hell she was. Besides, I had a few other things on my mind, like looking into ways to get back to the right time. It's not like I'm itchin' to head back to life after the Pulse because let's face it, I'm gonna miss the never ending stream of hot baths but I needed to get back. Who knew what White was doing to all my friends, to Logan, without me around to protect them. I'd been lookin' around the city, for anybody who knew anything about portals and kept gettin' the same answer everytime.

If I wanted to go to another dimension (dimension?!!) it was a piece of cake, but the dealio on the future? Not so cut and dry. There was no guarantee that I'd make it back to the right time, I could end up everywhere. And at least here I have the warm baths, and my annoying roommate who I'm never talking about again. In fact, I'd been a little hung up on Alec. Not that I'm about to get all sappy or whatever, but I made a mistake and he took advantage of me while I was in heat like the self serving jerk that he was. So I wasn't thinking about him, and I wasn't talkin' to him and I definitely wasn't lookin' at him when he came out of the bathroom with just a towel wrapped around his waist. He's disgusting, and I hate him. A lot.

Except that I don't really hate him at all. He's not Logan, but he's been a good friend to me even when I'm bailin' his ass out and wantin' to kick it the other half of the time for being such an idiot. Still, if it wasn't for that idiot I'd be all alone on this side of the portal.

When I got home I was relieved to see no sign of him anywhere, but as soon as I went to the fridge for a beer I saw the note tacked up to the door. Pulling it away from the magnet, I frowned as I read it over. Maybe it wasn't fair of me to be ignoring him the way that I was. After all, I did start the whole thing even though it's not my fault that I'm a freak. With a sigh I tossed the note on the counter top and cursed myself because I already knew what I was about to do.

Grabbing my jacket I pulled it on as I headed out the door and towards Alec's favorite bar.

(open to Alec)

Part of the magic of being ex-Manticore is all the little bumps and struggles on the way. Like the whole Tryptophan dealio. One day I'm running like a champ and the next the seizures are so bad that I can't even see straight. Only thing it means is that I'm overdue for my fifty thousand mile checkup but considering the mechanics are evil bastards who wanna put me in a cage for the rest of time I wasn't to into that. Luckily for me, I got shot and captured. Okay, maybe that doesn't sound so lucky but even I can find that silver lining. Cause Manticore fixed me during my summer long stay and now I don't need the Tryptophan anymore.

There's still a few other kinks that weren't so easily worked out. Part of my genetic cocktail includes animal DNA, more specifically cat. Two or three times a year I start to feel like one. You know in the middle of the night you hear that yowling outside your window. It almost sounds like an alleycat's dying or something but really she's just trying to draw every tomcat in town towards her to get that itch scratched. That's what happens to me, I go into...heat. Somebody really ought to lock me up when I'm like that but nobody ever does. Instead I'm taking cold shower after cold shower hoping I don't do something real stupid. But I always end up doing something real stupid and I sleep with total losers that I can't seem to get rid of.

It happened again and this time I slept with Alec. Ew. Yeah, that Alec. The guy who drives me absolutely fucking insane and won't ever seem to go away. Don't get me wrong, we've come a long way from the day he busted into my cell to tell me that we were breeding partners. I'd been watching him for days and I couldn't help it, he's...annoying and I hate him. He's always doing something stupid and I'm always having to bail his stupid ass out of whatever trouble he's gotten himself into this week. And half of the time he's getting someone else in trouble at the same time and also have I mentioned that I hate him? Maybe right now he's the only thing I have which is why we're roommates but this was never supposed to happen.

So now I'm stuck living with the jackass who can't get anything right knowing that I went there with him. Why am I broken? The next time this happens to me someone please just knock me unconscious and wake me up in a couple of days.

Tired of following Angel around all of the time. Besides, how am I supposed to get any answers out of the guy if I never actually talk to him? Don't get me wrong, I still have no clue how to approach him or what to tell him but he's the only one who's gonna know where Faith is. I never really thought much about my dad, I mean I thought about the things I'd seen down in the Manticore basement but I tried pretty hard to block it out of my memory. He wasn't at all the monster that I remembered in my tryptophan hell in the morning but it had been my mother that I had been consumed with finding all of those years. They were in that basement when I was a kid but when I went back to free everyone from Manticore I couldn't find them anywhere. Had they died?

Screw it. I'm sick of sitting around and doing nothing. Watching Alec sneak off all the time to do whatever the hell it is he likes to do around here. We get by knocking off the wealthy neighborhoods in the city but I knew eventually I'd have to get myself a real respectable job. Not sure if I'll go back to being a bike messenger but I gotta keep up some kinda front and working that gig helped me scope out my next hit as far as stealing shit goes. I'm only supposed to steal from the bad guys, kind of a Robin Hood thing but desperate times call for desperate measures, y'know?

Angel had company, some brunette chick that I didn't recognize. For a minute I thought it was my mother but once she got closer I could tell that it wasn't Faith. The two of them got into Angel's car and took off and I figured that was prime time to go hunting. I didn't have to actually talk to the guy to find out where my mother was, I'm sure he had some kind of records in that big ass hotel of his. If not, I could probably find something to sell in there. Just a little something to keep Alec and I afloat for a little longer. It's not really stealing if we're family, right? I don't ever remember seeing any child support for my ass so I figure fair's fair. Even if he has no clue that I even exist.

I busted in through a third story window and realized quickly that it was his room. Glancing around at the bed and the dresser, the closet. The room was actually kind of empty if you didn't count the clothes and the weapons. Weapons....bet those were worth a few Benjamins.

Stalking over to the display case that was filled to the brim with swords and knives and axes, I admired a few of them before I settled on a sword with a Chinese inscription on it. Pulling the sword out, I let my fingertips graze over the inscription on it. I wasn't exactly fluent in Chinese but I recognized the time period it had been built, and I knew for sure this was worth a lot of money. I held it up a little bit and frowned at it. I'd never actually fought with a weapon like this. At Manticore they preached self-reliance over everything else. What the mind can conceive the body can achieve. I was the weapon. Of course, that never stopped Lydecker from pushing guns on us but they were the military. What could you expect? I wondered if I could fight with one of these and I was positive that I could even though I'd never tried before. Not that it matters, I'm selling this bitch anyways.

Still gripping the sword I walked over to his dresser and started pulling drawers out but nothing popped out at me except for some socks, pants. Boring. With a shrug I slammed the drawer shut and walked to his desk, the sword still gripped tightly in one hand. Sitting down I glanced at the book on top of the desk and curiously opened it up to see what dear old Dad had been reading last. Looked like a book of poetry or something. Biting down on my lip I started to read some of it when I heard a creak in the doorway. Calmly I stood up and turned around to see Angel standing there staring at me.

"Never figured you as the poetry type." I shrugged, like he should have just expected to find me in here. "Nice collection by the way." I said appreciatively as I looked at the sword I was holding.

Action is eloquence. -William Shakespeare

The trip from Seattle to L.A. was pretty uneventful now that me and Alec didn't have to really worry about sector checkpoints or anything like that. In fact, sectors don't even exist here. I knew about that from my few years after the escape before the Pulse hit, but it had been so long now that I felt like there wasn't even a world before the Pulse sometimes. Here it was though, living proof that something had existed before the Pulse. Kind of funny though, after it hit people were always talkin' about how much better things were before, but if you ask me they're the same now as they've always been. Just tryin' to grab the biggest piece of cheese for themselves, eager to sell out their fellow man to serve their own purposes and most importantly? They're still lookin' to get paid.

Alec and I managed to steal enough bling from Lydecker's crib to pay off a pretty decent apartment for ourselves in L.A. Course, we had to steal a few more things in order to pay off all of it but at least we had a place all to ourselves with hot water and everything. Like, an endless supply of hot water, and our very own shower. Alright, so maybe things weren't all bad in 2007 but it didn't change the fact that I needed to get back to the future. I just wasn't sure how I could do that unless I could find some way to track down White or maybe even Sandeman. The trail was cold on the both of them for now and I wasn't really sure where else to start digging. Besides, maybe all of this happened for a reason. Now I have an actual shot at tracking down my parents pre-Pulse before the paper trail on almost everything was erased.

The problem was, I didn't have a lot to go on. Sure, the trail wasn't completely dead on Faith and Angel like it was on White and Sandeman but it was cold enough to give me a few second thoughts. The only thing right now that stood in the way of me and finding my dad was a law firm. Which to be fair, was a little on the weird side. Why would a law firm be mixed up with Manticore? The only thing I could find out about Wolfram and Hart was that it'd been around for a really long time and it was a little on the pricey side. I mean, these guys have some serious bank workin' for them which was gonna make my job a little harder since I had to worry about all kinds of security. I guess I've seen worse though.

It didn't matter, I couldn't give up now. The future would have to be put on hold because I had a few things from the past to take care of before I could go back there. I refused to believe that this was the way we were meant to stay. I was on the brink of something really important in Seattle and now I didn't know if that had been stopped or what. If I'm here, changing the past, what will that do to the future?

I hate all of the constant questions and it's not like I even have my little spot above the world to sit in anymore. The Space Needle was great for thinkin' about my crazy life and figuring out what the hell I was supposed to do next and I just couldn't seem to find a perch high enough in L.A. Lucky for me, I've still got my head, which is more than I can say to some people that I share a living space with.

"Put this on." I said to Alec, as I walked in through the front door and threw a garment bag at him which contained a really expensive suit inside.

I was already wearing the dress and the heels. Wolfram and Hart just had way too much security for even Alec and I to try and get through, and the building was so enormous that I wasn't sure where to start. There was only one way to deal with this and lucky for me growin' up Manticore at least gave us a few courses in undercover.

"We can't break into Wolfram and Hart? We'll just have to do it the old fashioned way. I'm suddenly feeling like suing somebody. How 'bout you?" I smirked at him. It's not like I can just sit around and do nothing. When the answers don't come to you, you gotta go get 'em yourself sometimes.

Things were gettin' pretty crazy around Terminal City, otherwise known as Transgenic City. Also, I think I heard some jerks on the nightly news calling it Freak City. Well, what can I say? I'm proud to be a freak. They made us and now it was about time that they dealt with us. I spent the first twenty years of my life hiding and running for my life and now? I'm not hiding, I'm not running, I'm tired of that.

It was hard for most of to get out there with the rest of the Ordinaries. Me and Alec could sneak out easy but some of my fellow freaks couldn't exactly blend in on the Seattle sidewalks. Which meant that it was up to me and the idiot of my life to go out and snag whatever supplies we needed back at base from the outside world. Every night the two of us out on our bikes trying to score from whatever 'bad guy' Logan happened to come across this weeks. Sure, things were a little slow going since the destruction of Eyes Only but I give it another week before he's running strong again. Y'know, fight the power, protect the downtrodden, blah blah woof woof. He loves that hero stuff, I guess some of it must be rubbing off on me. Pretty whack if you ask me, but I can't explain everything. Weird stuff just happens. I just wanna protect my own, it's my fault they're out in the world.

Kind of funny how the only thing I wanted when I torched Manticore was a chance to go back to my crazy little normal life. Normal, whatever that means. Now here I am holed up in the city with the rest of my 'furry little friends' fighting a media war that I can't win and worrying about some jacked up snake cult. Not to mention this virus dealio I got going on with Logan. Max and Logan, get busy. That's the plan. Right. I don't even know what the plan is anymore.

I walked out into the central headquarters and saw Alec watching a football game with Mole. Folding my arms over my chest I tilted my head to the side and gave them both a disapproving look before clearing my throat. They both turned to me before Alec quickly flipped the channel back to the surveillance cameras at the entrance to Terminal City.

"C'mon." I said, throwing Alec's jacket at him. "We've gotta make a pickup tonight."


(Alec...)

You could say I'm the master of staying low to the ground, figuratively of course because I kind of have a fetish for heights. What can I say? Throw a little feline DNA in a girl's genetic cocktail and you're bound to have some gravitational issues. That's not really the point, the point is when you're a transgenic freak you tend to keep yourself out of the line of sight. Even when you know that you have abilities just itching to kick into overdrive, when you're dying to tell the world that it can't push you around anymore, you still keep it to yourself cause the alternative is so much worse.

Even as a kid I knew that I had to stay out of plain sight or else Lydecker and his men would be throwing me back into their sick version of boot camp faster than I could say Sir, yes sir. So I stayed low, I kept out of sight and I pretended to be just like every other girl in the world. The world is a scary place for a kid, made even scarier thanks to the Pulse but I still managed to get by even when I was forced into one foster home after the next. Finding the right kind of parents for a kid wasn't really the government's top concern after the Pulse and since you get a monthly stipend for taking in a stray all of the wrong kinds of people were taking in foster kids. Everybody's just looking to make a buck in the end and I learned that real fast.

It wasn't all so bad, Lucy was like a sister to me when we were just kids. Her dad took me in for what had to be the money because he obviously didn't give a crap about me, he couldn't even seem to care about his own daughter. I still remember the way things had been in that house, how he'd get so angry that he'd beat us both black and blue until Lucy finally stopped crying. I never cried, what he didn't know was that I wasn't your average little girl and his beatings hardly held a candle to my training at Manticore. I could take it but Lucy? She was just a kid, she didn't know anything about the world and he was supposed to be her dad. There are so many times when I look back at that and desperately wished that I had done something, anything to stop him because I could have, I held the power but I was too afraid of being found out to use it.

Lucy and I would hide sometimes for hours, we'd hide in the crawl space beneath our bedroom when her dad would get so drunk he couldn't figure out where to look for us. We'd hide underneath the floorboards until we heard him finally pass out on one of our beds. And then there were the nights when he called Lucy into his room and I could hear her crying and screaming for him to stop but he wouldn't, and those were the nights I would hide by myself. Squeezing my eyes shut and rocking back and forth begging for it to be over, for him to stop hurting her, knowing all the while that I could stop it anytime I wanted.

Eventually I couldn't deal anymore and so I blazed out of there, leaving Lucy behind to deal with her abusive father on her own. I don't think I'll ever forgive myself for that. See, here's the thing about hiding. You can be nearly perfect at it, you can slip into all the right places and pretend to be all of the right people and never get caught. But it doesn't matter how good you are at hiding from the rest of the world because you'll never be able to hide from yourself.


Muse: Max Guevera
Fandom: Dark Angel
Word Count: 683

Title: Welcome to My Life
Fandom: Dark Angel
Character: Max Guevera
Prompt: Partial Eclipse
Rating: R
Word Count: 316
Disclaimer: I'm too pretty to be James Cameron.

( Flames to dust, lovers to friends. Why do all good things come to an end? )