All of Us -- Chapter 6

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.).

“Thanks for dragging your ass away from playing doctor to help me with the TVs in here,” Zane said to Wayne the next day as they were repairing a TV in what was being set up to be a rec room in the main building in Terminal City.

“Playing doctor? I am a doctor,” Wayne said. He grinned.

“Oh, that’s right. I forgot that degree that you for whatever reason keep in your apartment in the desk drawer.” Zane rolled his eyes.

“Boys, play nice or I’m going to have to sic Zack on you,” Max teased.

“Oh, no, anything but that,” Wayne said in mock horror. “You know that I can’t take it!”

“Yeah, neither can I,” Zane added, grinning.

“Boys,” Syl said. “Speaking of which, where is Zack?”

“He’ll be here soon,” Max assured her. “He’s waiting over by the west gate for Jondy and Jace and Little Max. They should be getting here any minute now.”

“I can’t wait,” Brin said. “All of us together for the first time in twelve years.” She grinned excitedly. “I feel like a little kid. Well, considering our childhoods, what a little kid should feel like. I don’t remember the last time I was this excited.”

Rena laughed. “I know what you mean. I think the last time I was this excited was when I was twelve and I was living just outside of Dallas and my foster family threw me a party for my fake birthday. It was only the second time that I’d celebrated a birthday. Zane and I had gotten a little cake from a bakery about a month or so after my actual birthday that year and considering that the Pulse had happened only two weeks before then and we were only three months out of Manticore, we had a great time. The one my foster family threw for me was pretty classic, though. Big cake, lots of candles, presents, friends, everything. It was so awesome.”

“If it was so good with your foster family, why did you leave?” Krit asked.

“My foster dad died two or so years after that,” Rena said. “The state let me stay with my foster mom I guess since I was fourteen and more self-reliant than like an eight or nine-year-old would be ‘cause they moved my younger foster sister and she was about eight at the time. A few days after my fifteenth birthday, my actual fifteenth birthday and not the one I made up when I went into the foster care system in Texas, my foster mom started to date again. It was okay until she started dating this one guy right after my assumed fifteenth birthday at the end of December and that was even okay at first until he came to the house to pick her up for a date about a week-and-a-half after they’d started dating. He was wearing a military uniform and I knew that they weren’t going to a costume party. I almost had a heart attack. As soon as they left, I packed my things, stole my foster mom’s car which I still feel a little bit guilty about, and drove to Fort Worth and picked up a bus to Abilene and then got a motel room and called Zack and I haven’t been back to Texas since.”

“Of all the people that your foster mom had to date, it would have had to have been someone military,” Max said.

“That’s not the best part,” Rena told her. “You guys have no idea how lucky I got because the guy who my foster mom was dating was connected to Manticore. He was a guard from the Seattle facility who was on leave so of course he’d seen Sasha around at Manticore and according to Zack, who told me this a few weeks after the incident once he’d done some surveillance on my foster home to make sure that I was in the clear, the date had thought that I’d looked familiar and then that night after he’d banged my foster mom and they were in bed in his hotel room, it hit him that I looked exactly like Sasha and he knew that Sasha had a twin so he put in a call to either Renfro or Lydecker or whomever and they were combing the place within hours of his call. I missed them by about…” She paused while she tried to remember. “…six hours, I think. I’ve lived on my own ever since.”

“You always liked to live on the edge, huh, Rena?” Krit observed with a smirk.

“You know it,” Rena said. “Whether it’s pulling stunts on my bike or leading a 100 mph plus chase on my bike or missing Manticore by a few hours because my foster mom is dating someone from there, you can just call me a regular freaking adrenaline junkie.”

“There, got that done,” Zane said, tightening the final screw on the TV. He put his tools down and turned to Rena and the others. “You want to talk about stunts on a motorcycle, you should have seen it this one time when I was seventeen—“ He abruptly stopped and he and the others turned around at the sound of a few people entering the room.

“Wow, complete and utter silence,” Jondy commented in mock surprise. “I’d never thought I’d see the day when that came from everybody.”

“Finally,” Max said happily. She got up and ran over to Jondy and gave her a big hug. “How have you been? How was Arizona?”

“Living in Flagstaff wasn’t bad,” Jondy said. “It’s a little slower than San Francisco was, but it was still okay.”

“Holy shit, Jace!” Krit exclaimed. He ran up and hugged her. “I can’t believe it’s you!”

“Watch your mouth around my daughter,” Jace said, but she was laughing and she tried to return Krit’s hug with her free arm. “It’s good to see you too, little brother. I missed you so much. I’ve really missed all of you, even back when I was at Manticore and they tried to make me not care about you guys.”

“Oh, Jace, is this your daughter? She’s beautiful,” Syl said, looking at Little Max. “How old is she?”

“Ten months,” Jace informed her. “Little Max, say hi to all of your aunts and uncles.” She passed the baby to Syl, who was the closest one to her. “Don’t worry about holding her. She really likes the attention.”

“She’s absolutely beautiful,” Max observed. “I guess she looks like her daddy.”

“Yeah, she does,” Jace said sadly. “I miss Victor so much and I have no idea where he is right now or if he’s even alive, but having Little Max here helps a lot. She’s just an absolute sweetheart.”

“Speaking of babies, I can’t wait to show off Anthony to you,” Brin said proudly. “He is the most beautiful little boy and he is such a good baby.”

“Brin, the proud mom,” Zane teased.

“Just wait until you have a kid,” Brin told him. “I can guarantee you that you’ll be going on non-stop about how great he or she is and how he or she can do anything and how beautiful he or she is. Just wait and see, Zane.”

“Not for a few years if I can help it,” Zane said.

“Don’t mind your Uncle Zane,” Syl told Little Max. “He’s got a few screws loose in his head. So does Uncle Wayne.”

“Oh, she likes Wayne,” Jace said. “When he came over to the motel room that we crashed at last night, she was smiling at him and laughing and she didn’t even make a peep when he took some blood and just gave her a quick general checkup.”

“Awww, her first visit to the pediatrician,” Rena said, her voice overly sweet. “Isn’t that sweet? You were so lucky to witness that big event, Jondy.”

“I know,” Jondy agreed. She pretended to wipe a tear from one of her eyes. “The look on Little Max’s face when Wayne brought out that stethoscope and listened to her heartbeat brought tears to my eyes. It was quite a moment there. It really was.” She, Rena, and Max started laughing.

“Some things never change,” Zack remarked.

“Yeah,” Wayne said. He turned to Krit and Zane. “You guys do realize that now that those three are together again, we’re going to have to be as far away from them as possible because we all know what happens when we’re not.”

“I was the one who got kitchen duty for a week straight, remember?” Krit pointed out.

“Boys, boys, boys,” Jondy said. She threw an arm around Krit’s shoulders. “You three aren’t afraid of three girls, are you?”

“Three girls? Nope.” Zane shook his head. “Three hell beasts? That we are afraid of.” He ducked the fist that Jondy swung at him.

“Yeah, some things really never change,” Zack said.

“I know,” Max agreed. She looked around and grinned. “I can’t believe it. We’re finally all together again.”

“We are,” Zack said. “We’ll stay that way this time. I promise.”

TBC