All of Us -- Chapter 10

Disclaimer: The TV show Dark Angel, all of the characters that appeared on it (Max, Zack, Alec, etc.), and everything else that has to do with the show belong to their respective owners, not to me. No money is being made off of this fic. I only own the original characters (Becky/X6-405, etc.).

Notes: Just as a precaution, I want to let all of you know that there’s a little bit more swearing in this part than normal.

“Stupid stains on sink…get off…” Max grunted as she tried to scrub her kitchen sink. She squirmed uncomfortably. “I said for you to get off…” She trailed off again and squirmed and wiped her forehead. “Damn, I think I need a break.” She dropped her sponge and opened the refrigerator and took out a pitcher of water and poured herself a glass. “Much better.” She heard her cell phone ring and put her glass down on the counter and ran over to the phone and picked it up and answered it. “Yeah, what is it?”

“Relax, Max, it’s just me,” Becky said. She sounded a little amused. “What got your underwear in a twist?”

“I don’t know, it’s just one of those days,” Max replied. “Where are you and where the hell is your brother?”

“I just finished pulling sentry duty by the main gate and I’m about to head back to my place and as far as I know, Zack is still working with Zane and those two X4s on fixing up the upper floors of the med bay building so we can turn the whole damn thing into something that passes for a real hospital,” Becky said. “Are you sure that you’re okay, Max? You sound pretty irritable.”

“Can you point out any day when I don’t sound irritable at least once?” Max joked. She and Becky laughed. “Don’t worry. I’m really okay. I appreciate the concern.”

“No problem,” Becky said. “I was thinking about going down to the cafeteria and maybe eating dinner there for once instead of in my apartment. I think the microwave in my kitchen isn’t working right, anyway. Maggie swears that it’s fine but I don’t think the sides of the damn thing are supposed to feel hot when you’re using it.”

Max bit her lip to stifle a moan. “That doesn’t sound too good to me, either.”

“Max, are you really sure that you’re fine?” Becky asked.

“Holy crap, I’m fine,” Max insisted. “Look, go get some food and maybe after dinner we can start planning a few raids.”

“Okay,” Becky said. “If you say so. I’ll see you later.”

“See you later,” Max said. She disconnected and threw her phone back down on the kitchen counter and wiped her sweat-soaked forehead again. “It’s warm, even for Seattle in April. Either that or some X7 without a clue tried to help with the air conditioning and instead…” Her eyes widened and she smacked herself in the forehead. “Damnit!”

Becky disconnected and put her phone back in her jeans pocket as she walked off towards the cafeteria. Max doesn’t usually sound that irritable. What is going on with her? Oh well, who knows. I’ve been friends with Max for almost ten months now and I can’t figure her out all of the time. I guess this is one of those times.

“Hey, Becky,” a cheerful voice greeted.

“Hey, Riley,” Becky said. “Where are you coming from?”

“Babysitting duty over in the nursery,” Riley said. “There’s nothing scarier than watching over a few X9s that are going through their ‘terrible twos.’ They seriously should have used that in Psy Ops back when Manticore was still around. That would have adjusted a few people’s attitudes in a hurry.”

“Ouch.” Becky winced. “Have you seen Jeff?”

“No,” Riley said. “I think he’s still out doing recon for a job with Biggs and Alec. You should have seen how happy he was that he was going to be pulling a job with his two idols from Manticore.”

“I did,” Becky reminded her. She grinned. “He came to see me after Biggs and Alec asked him to do the job with them. He looked like a little kid in a candy store.”

“If you thought that was bad, you should have been around him when he got assigned to do a mission with those two,” Riley said. “It was right after he’d gotten cleared for solo ops, so it was back in October of ’19. They had to go take out a naval base up in Alaska and they were gone for two weeks but for a week before then, it seemed like all I heard from Jeff when we were off duty was ‘They selected me to go on a mission with 494 and 511!’ and ‘I can’t believe that they chose me to go on a mission with the two top X5s from our facility’ and on and on and on…and then for a week after they got back he wouldn’t shut up about how awesome the mission went and how cool it was to work with them and I almost punched him so many times.”

“Hey, let the guy have his hero worship,” Becky said. “I had mine.”

“It’s weird how you didn’t know that Zack was your brother back then and yet you still hero-worshipped them and you never stopped looking up to him and the rest of their family even after they left like 99% of Manticore did,” Riley observed.

“Yeah,” Becky said. “I’m gonna grab some food in the cafeteria tonight.”

“I was gonna head that way myself,” Riley said. She snickered. “Christian ended up with kitchen duty tonight and I just want to point and laugh at the sight of him in an apron and a hairnet.”

“That’s going to suck for him,” Becky commented. She also laughed. “It sounds like fun.” She and Riley suddenly paused and looked over in the direction of the buildings where most of the transgenics that were old enough had apartments. “I think Zack’s back. It sounds like he’s in a hurry to get back to Max.”

Riley shrugged. “So let him go back to Max so they can have alone time. You can always go say hi to him later.”

“True. I could always—oh, shit!” Becky said. “That’s why Max was so irritable when I talked to her on the phone just a few minutes ago.” She gave Riley a look and they both bolted for Max and Zack’s apartment.

Max paced around her living room. “Okay…I’m in heat…please don’t let Zack come near me right now…don’t want kids right now…just keep on telling yourself that...keep reminding yourself of that…you don’t want kids…little babies are a no-no right now…” She continued to pace and wring her hands and jumped in surprise when the front door was thrown open. “Oh crap, Zack, not right now, not right now.”

“Yeah…” Zack said slowly. Then he blurred over to Max and kissed her hard. Max felt any chances she had of forming a coherent thought leave her as she returned the kiss and somehow managed to take Zack’s leather jacket off of him as he practically flew into their bedroom with her in his arm. He dropped Max onto the bed and reached to remove his shirt when a blur knocked him down. A split second later, Max felt herself being restrained by somebody. She tried desperately to wriggle free, but whoever was holding her was too strong to release her.

“Damnit, Max, don’t make me knock you out,” Riley grunted.

“Let me go, you bitch!” Max screamed.

“Nope,” Riley said.

Meanwhile, Becky was almost surprised to find herself having a hard time trying to restrain Zack. “Stop it right the hell now, Zack!”

“No fucking way,” Zack snapped. He swung and connected hard with Becky’s left eye.

“You fucker!” she yelled. She reflexively grabbed her eye, only to barely manage to catch Zack as he tried to take advantage of her distraction and get back to Max. “That’s it. So much for trying to be nice and not hurt you.” She hit Zack in the ribs, but it didn’t seem to slow Zack down much at all.

“Don’t you dare keep me from her,” he yelled. He kicked out and connected with Becky’s right leg.

Becky screamed when she felt and heard the snap. “That’s it, you bastard!” She swung out at him hard and connected with his head. Zack went down and Becky collapsed to the floor, trying to catch her breath.

“What did you do, you worthless little bitch!” Max shrieked.

“Riley, please get her into a cold shower,” Becky gasped.

“Will do,” Riley said. She dragged Max into the bathroom, turned on the cold water, and tossed Max in with her clothes on. “Happy shower, Max.”

“Damn you,” Max swore.

“I know, I know,” Riley said. She walked back into the bedroom. “Are you okay?”

“I need to see if they’ve got a steak in the fridge because my eye feels like it’s swelling up quicker than Kevin on roast beef night back at Manticore,” Becky replied. “I need to get some ice for my leg, too.”

Riley took a look at Becky’s leg and blinked. “Becky, I might not be the field med in my family, but that bone looks like it’s just about broken in two. I think you need more than an ice pack for it.”

“Are you kidding me?” Becky said. She looked down at her leg. “Crap.”

“What’s going on in here?” Syl asked. She and Jace and Jondy entered the bedroom and stopped short. “Holy shit, what happened in here? Where’s Max?”

“I’m here in this freezing cold shower that Riley so nicely threw me into fully clothed,” Max snapped.

“Oh brother,” Jace said. “I think Max went into heat and Becky and Riley broke it up before they could finish it. Becky, I would have thought that you would have learned your lesson about trying to restrain a male X5 who was about to mate with a female who was in heat without any help.”

“There wasn’t enough time to think about that,” Becky informed Jace. She shrugged. “Somebody had to keep Max back while I tried to restrain Zack.” She saw the confused looks that Syl and Jondy had. “When a male X5 is stopped from mating with a female who’s in heat, his instincts are telling him like crazy to get back to the female and to let nothing stop him from doing that. The adrenaline rush that results actually makes him as strong as someone like me or Riley so even if it’s someone with our skill level, you still need more than one of us. They learned that only a few weeks before Zack turned himself in to Manticore for Max. Two X5s, they happened to be from the unit that Jace was re-assigned to so that’s why she knows about this incident because she saw at least part of it happen, were trying to mate with each other outside while they were running a training mission. I was in the woods with my family as well running my own exercise and I happened to be the closest to them, so I get radioed by a trainer ordering me to restrain the male and one of the other girls in that unit restrained the female. They figured that I could handle the guy on my own. I did, sort of. I ended up down from active duty for almost a week because the prick elbowed me in the face and broke my cheekbone and almost broke my wrist, but I managed to restrain him until Jace and the rest of the girls in that unit arrived and took over keeping the guy down.”

“Nasty,” Jondy remarked. She sighed. “Who gets to carry big brother’s sorry ass over to the med bay?”

“I’ll do it,” Jace said. She picked Zack up and slung him over her shoulder as easily as if he was Little Max.

“Max, do you want somebody to stay here with you?” Jondy asked.

“No, I think I’ll be okay,” Max said. She sounded a little more subdued. “I’ll just bolt the door shut when you guys leave.”

“Okay,” Syl said. She and Riley helped Becky up off of the floor and out of the apartment. Jace followed them with Zack and Jondy left the apartment last, shutting the door behind her.

Max turned off the water and climbed out and walked over to the door and made sure that it was locked. She slid down until she was sitting on the floor and sighed. Great. Another mess caused by my Heat. Just wonderful. Because of my stupid pheromones, Zack and Becky are in med bay. Nice going. She shook her head and got up and went into her bedroom to see if there was a mess for her to clean up.

TBC