All of Us -- Chapter 43

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: Spoiler-ish stuff for “Bag ‘Em.”

“Two more hours,” Becky commented as she poked the food on her plate in the cafeteria that evening.

“What, two more hours until—that freaking hurt!” Kevin said, rubbing his head where Becky had hit him.

“You deserved it,” Ralph said.

“I did not,” Kevin insisted.

“You kind of did,” Ralph said. “Didn’t he, Kyle?”

“You did,” Kyle agreed.

“Sorry,” Kevin said.

“What has some of our favorite X6s in such a mood this evening?” Wayne joked as he, Jondy, Rena, Zane, Krit, and Syl sat down at the table with them.

“We’re just winding down after the last couple of days, I guess,” Riley said.

“That reminds me,” Jondy said. “Where are Max and Zack? Max said earlier that she was thinking about joining us here for dinner tonight.”

Wayne grinned wickedly. “I ran into Alec about an hour ago. When Zack came back to his and Max’s apartment after his class teaching martial arts to some of the older X9s, the first thing he did was to tell Alec and Biggs and Brin and Sasha to leave. Alec said that as he and the others were leaving the building, they heard the sound of clothes being torn off and…”

“Stop it,” Becky said. She was looking slightly green. “I actually want to eat my dinner and not throw up all over it.”

“Me too,” Krit said. He had a similar look on his face. “Do any of you guys have spare apartment space for me and Syl to crash in for awhile?”

“Hey! Since when were we forced out of our apartment?” Syl wondered.

“Since the fact that we live only two floors up from Max and Zack and we’ll probably be able to hear them and for me, that is wrong on so many levels even I can’t begin to count them all,” Krit said.

“I don’t understand what the big deal is,” Syl said. “We can tune out the noise. Can’t we?”

“Yeah,” Kyle said. “We did that at Manticore when the breeding program was running.”

“I guess that meeting for tomorrow is going to have to be rescheduled,” Zane remarked.

“Which one?” Becky asked. “Oh, the one about Rob?”

“I’m in favor of beating the living shit out of him a few times,” Riley said. “Let’s give him a taste of what White did to Jeff and let him see how it feels.”

“Good call,” Becky said. Ralph nodded in agreement.

Rena shrugged. “I personally think Rob deserves any and all kinds of hell myself, but unfortunately, we have to work this out. Democracy and practicality are annoying sometimes.”

“That and cleaning up all of the blood because there would be plenty shed after everybody is done beating the living shit out of Rob,” Kyle said. Ralph looked a little green and put a hand over her mouth. “Are you okay, Ralph?” Ralph nodded but kept her hand over her mouth and didn’t say anything.

“Whenever she sees or hears people talking about a lot of blood, she gets really squeamish,” Riley said. “She can deal with everyday sparring injuries and things like that, but if it’s seriously major, then so is her reaction.”

“It’s how I got my name,” Ralph admitted. “The night of the fire, I somehow got separated from the rest of my family once we all got over the fence and I somehow ended up in a group with Alec and one of the X5s from Wyoming, 601. 601 had gotten shot by one of the X7s. It wasn’t a bad hit, but it bled pretty bad at first and I threw up and Alec wondered if I was going to ralph every time 601 would have to change the bandages on her wound and a few days later after the three of us split up and I was thinking about giving myself a name, that memory popped into my head and I decided that I liked the name Ralph.” She looked thoughtful. “How did you guys get your names?”

“I got my name from this one government official’s assistant who visited Manticore with her boss the day before we named ourselves back in November of 2003,” Rena said. “Her name was Irene and I overheard one of the other visitors call her Rena as they were walking by us and inspecting us. I knew that Rena was a nickname, at least in her case, but I thought it was a cool name.”

“I heard two guards talking about John Wayne one day when I was in martial arts class and I was waiting in line for my turn to spar and I was bored,” Wayne recalled. “He sounded like such a cool guy that I wanted to name myself after him and I thought John was a boring name, so I went with Wayne.”

“Bullshit. You went with Wayne because you wanted to piss me off,” Zane countered. “The only reason that Krit didn’t also give himself a name that rhymed with ‘Zane’ was because he couldn’t think of one at the time. I’m kind of surprised that he didn’t rename himself later with a rhyming name.”

“I would have, but I liked the name ‘Krit’ and any other name that I could think of that rhymed with ‘Zane’ I didn’t like,” Krit admitted.

“You let that stop—“ Zane was cut off when Rena turned his head towards her and kissed him. When they parted, they looked at the surprised faces at the table, particularly at the especially surprised faces of Jondy, Krit, Syl, and Wayne. “Oh crap, we didn’t tell you guys yet.”

“You hooked up?” Jondy wondered.

“Yeah, the day that White got Jeff,” Rena confirmed. “We didn’t have the chance to tell you guys because first and foremost we wanted to help get Jeff back safe and sound.” She smirked. “This is kind of a recurring theme for us. We admit our feelings for each other and we find out that Jeff was taken. Just over twelve years ago, we have our first kiss and we found out that the Pulse had happened.”

“What’s next? You have a kid and find out that there was a massive earthquake down the coast and half of California has disappeared into the ground?” Jondy joked.

“Hey, I was going to say something like that,” Kevin said. “Not bad.”

“Stick with me and you’ll go places,” Jondy said.

“Yeah, the med bay when she talks you into pulling some insane stunt with her,” Syl remarked.

“I won’t talk him into pulling what you would consider an insane stunt,” Jondy said. She grinned over at Wayne. “That honor I’m giving to Wayne.”

“Jondy, everybody considers the shit that you end up pulling off insane,” Syl pointed out.

“Zack told me about that time when he was relocating you back in ’15 and you guys were in a jam and you made him pull off with you that deal when—“ Becky started to say.

Jondy rolled her eyes. “For Pete’s sake, that wasn’t that big of a deal. Lydecker’s morons didn’t even have a clue that we’d slipped out from under their noses.”

“Jondy, out of the four thousand-plus of us Manticore soldiers, I bet that not even fifty of us would have had the nerve to even try to pull that off,” Becky said.

“Damn, I’m good,” Jondy commented. She grinned and laughed when Becky shook her head.

“I can’t wait until I have somebody sane to talk to,” she said.

TBC