Dysfunctional -- Chapter 35

Disclaimer:  The TV show Dark Angel, all of the characters that appeared on it (Alec, Biggs, Renfro, 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 (X5-121, etc.).

Notes:  Just so nobody gets confused, in the flashback parts of this chapter, the thoughts are in regular type and everything else will be in italics. Spoilers/spoiler-ish stuff for “The Berrisford Agenda.”

511 walked into his cell that night and shut the door behind him. He sat down on his bunk with a sigh and stared at the wall that separated his cell from 121’s. In just minutes, the woman that I love is going to be forced into having sex with another man. God, how am I going to get through this? I had to be strong in front of 121. I know how sensitive she is deep down. I couldn’t let her see how upset I really am over this situation. He reflexively tensed when he heard footsteps approach 121’s cell and that door opening. He listened in on what was being said.

“Hello, there,” an unfamiliar male voice spoke up. “You must be 121. I’m 591.”

“Yeah, it’s a thrill,” 121 said flatly.

“Oh, come on,” 591 told the female X5. “I know that these aren’t the best of circumstances, but this is going to be sex without the fear of getting caught and punished. How bad can it be?”

“Plenty,” 121 said venomously.

“Okay, if you still want to be upset about why we’re going to be fucking, that’s fine. You’ll get over it eventually,” 591 declared confidently. There was a pause. “Damn, you’re beautiful.”

511 clenched his fists. One more remark like that and I don’t care how much time in Psy Ops it’ll get me, I’ll make sure that you won’t be able to move or even breathe on your own for a very long time, much less have sex with anybody.

“No shit. I’m also an X5,” 121 pointed out, clearly annoyed.

“Listen…I know…how about we make this real? How about we become mates?” 591 suggested.

“No,” 121 told her breeding partner immediately. 511 breathed a sigh of relief and relaxed his hands. “There’s no way that I’ll ever mate with you, 591. I’ve got somebody already whom I’m more or less mated to. I love him with every cell in my body and nothing can make me feel differently, especially not this. I’m only copulating with you because I am under orders, just like you are. I will follow through with what I had been told to execute, but it’s not going to go any farther under any circumstances. Got it, 591?”

“Fine,” 591 agreed reluctantly. “That’s acceptable.”

“Want some company, buddy?”

511 almost jumped and turned his head to see 494 standing in the doorway to his cell. “What are you doing here?”

“I thought you might need some moral support,” 494 said. He entered the cell and closed the door behind him. He walked across the room and sat down next to 511 on the bunk. “How are you holding up?”

“Well, considering that they just started...” 511 jerked his thumb in the direction of 121's cell and made a face. “I’m doing abso-fucking-lutely peachy.”

“I’m sorry, man,” 494 apologized. “I really am.”

“I know that you are,” 511 conceded. He leaned forward and rested his head in his hands. “What am I going to do, 494? This is killing me. It’s killing me that the woman that I love more than anything else on this planet is only a few feet away being forced to have sex with somebody else and it’s killing me because I know how much this is hurting her. I can’t stand this. I don’t think that I can take hearing them through this wall.” He lifted his head up and turned to 494, the tears streaming down his face. “What am I going to do?”

494 felt his heart wrench at the pain and agony that his best friend was clearly in. I feel for you, 511. I feel so badly for you. I felt almost the same when… The memories came to him full force and he closed his eyes.

“…except for Thursdays, when your lesson with her will begin at five in the evening because her last class on that day runs until four,” Mr. Berrisford concluded. “Does that work for you, Simon?”

“It sounds good to me, sir,” 494 replied.

“Excellent,” Mr. Berrisford said. “Come with me and you can meet my daughter.” The two of them left the study and as they waited in the music room, 494 turned his head and coming around the corner was the most beautiful face that he’d ever seen before…

“That’s great,” 494 said as he watched Rachel play. “You’ve been getting much better just in the last couple of days alone.”

“It’s much easier to learn when your teacher is somebody that’s not boring,” Rachel replied.

“Not boring? Damn, I was hoping for gorgeous, witty, unforgettable…” 494 teased. The two of them laughed and met each other’s gaze, then blushed and looked away.

“At the party last night…was that just the champagne that I saw you drinking?” Rachel asked nervously as she stopped playing and turned to face 494 next to her. “It’s just that it felt so incredible and so…perfect and I know how guys are. Well, I know how some of the guys I go to school with are and I…”

“Rachel, I’m not any of the guys that you go to school with,” 494 told her sincerely. “The kiss last night was not influenced in any way by alcohol. I kissed you last night because I really have feelings for you.” He reached over and gently touched Rachel’s face. “I think I might be falling in love with you.”

Rachel gasped. “Really?”

“Really,” 494 confirmed.

“Oh my God, Simon,” Rachel breathed. She looked up at 494 with shining eyes. “I think I’m falling in love with you, too.”

“Wow,” 494 said softly. “Wow.” He leaned down and kissed her gently.

“It was great seeing you again, Simon,” Rachel said cheerfully as she walked 494 to her front door. As soon as her father was out of sight and earshot, she gave 494 a hug. “I’m gonna miss you.”

494 laughed. “Hey, I’ll be back tomorrow.” He looked around to make sure that Mr. Berrisford was still not in sight before he leaned down and looked Rachel in the eye. He cleared his throat. Why the hell am I nervous? It’s not like I haven’t asked girls out on dates before on missions. Oh yeah, I remember why. I’ve never loved them before. “Rachel, how about we go out on a date? An actual date?”

“Really?” Rachel squealed.

“Absolutely,” 494 assured her. “How about on Monday night? There’s this nice little Chinese restaurant in the city. We could go to a movie first. You said you wanted to catch that new comedy, right?”

“Right,” Rachel said. “It’s a date, Simon.”

494 grinned. “I’m looking forward to it.”

494 strode up to the Berrisfords’ front door, deep in thought. What the hell am I going to tell them? What would be the most plausible explanation that would get them out of the house and someplace safe? Maybe I could give Berrisford a subtle hint about going on a family vacation with Rachel and just not tell Manticore about it until they left. I could tell the folks back home that Berrisford wanted to surprise Rachel with a vacation for doing as well as she did on her first semester’s worth of final exams. Hell, I’ll come up with something. I always was good at thinking on my feet like that. He rang the doorbell and to his slight surprise, it was Mr. Berrisford himself and not one of the bodyguards or maids who answered the door. “Hello, sir.”

“Right on time, like always,” Mr. Berrisford observed. “I was just about to call you to let you know that Rachel’s lesson is going to be delayed by an hour today. I’m going to drive her into town to get her books for the spring semester and a few other things that she’s also going to need for school. It’s always good to get a jump on things, isn’t it?”

“It sure is, sir,” 494 agreed.

Mr. Berrisford nodded and turned back inside the house. “Rachel! Let’s get going!” He turned back to 494. “I’ll be seeing you later, Simon.” He walked past 494 and to the sedan that sat in the driveway and stood next to the driver’s side door, obviously waiting for his daughter.

“Hey, Simon,” Rachel said happily. “I guess Dad told you about the delay.”

“Yeah.” 494 shrugged and managed to smile at her. “I’ll see you again in an hour.”

“See you then,” Rachel said. She lowered her voice. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” 494 replied. He watched Rachel walk to the car and she reached for the door when he heard a click and froze. Damnit! They jumped the gun and planted and armed the fucking bomb. “Run! There’s a bomb under your car and it’s going to blow! Run!” He watched as Mr. Berrisford and Rachel got out of and ran from the car, but the bomb exploded only seconds later. 494 looked on in horror as he saw Rachel, who had been trailing her father, picked up by the shockwave of the explosion and hit the ground hard, landing on her head and not moving at all. “Rachel, no! Rachel!”

“494?”

“Yeah, 511?” he said distantly.

511 pointed to 494’s hands. “You’re shaking.”

“I’m fine,” 494 assured his friend, though he quickly shoved his indeed shaking hands into his pockets. He turned to look into 511’s red-rimmed eyes and sighed softly. Maybe he needs to hear this. Maybe this will help him. He took a deep breath and started to talk. “I took care of the actual piano teacher like I was told to do. It was almost too easy. Then the next day, I went to Berrisford’s mansion. I met the guy and then I met…I met Rachel.” He looked down for a moment. “She was so beautiful, 511. She had these big brown eyes and the sweetest smile and she was just so happy and innocent. I was floored. I’d never met anybody like her before.”

“Wow,” 511 commented softly.

“We got to know each other and every day after that, these feelings that I had for her got stronger and stronger,” 494 recalled. “We had our first kiss out by her pool this one night at a party that her dad threw that he’d actually invited me to. It was just this amazing moment, like everything fit right where it was supposed it, you know what I mean?”

“I do,” 511 agreed. He remembered his first kiss with 121 with perfect clarity.

“It wasn’t too much longer after that when I asked her out on a real date,” 494 said. He shuddered. “It was also around that time when I found out that the suspicious that Renfro and everybody had about her father were true. I checked in and presented the evidence and I was ordered to plant a bomb on their car and detonate it by remote, but I was ordered not only to kill Berrisford, but Rachel as well. I didn’t see the point, but they didn’t want to take any chances. Fine with me, you know? I’d figured that I’d warn them somehow to get to a safe location. I was given a week to plant and set off the bomb. But then I found out that they really didn’t want to take any chances.”

“What happened?” 511 asked, his voice unusually quiet.

“I got to their place the next day and I was told that they lesson would be delayed while they went into town,” 494 answered. He started to become choked up. “They got to the car and they were about to get in when I heard the click of a bomb being remotely armed. I screamed for them to run away and Mr. Berrisford did make it to a safe distance, but Rachel…the shockwave threw her and she hit her head when she landed. She wasn’t moving…I…” 494 finally broke down. 511 immediately slid over and gave his best friend a hug.

“I’m so sorry, man,” 511 said. “I’m so sorry.”

494 nodded and continued to cry for a few minutes before he stopped and looked up. “I know how you feel, 511. The moment when I saw Rachel hit her head when she landed on the ground, everything in me just fell apart. It hurt so damn badly and it still hurts when I think about it.” He took a deep breath. “You’re the luckiest guy I know, 511. What happened to Rachel was permanent, but this situation is not. Eventually, this breeding program will be over and you and 121 will move on together and things will be back to what they had been, if not even better because of how you weathered this storm with each other.”

511 looked at 494 and then hugged him again. “Thank you so much, 494. I can’t tell you how lucky I am to have you as a friend.”

“Same here,” 494 agreed. They sat down on 511’s bunk quietly, both of them wincing when they heard the sounds of 591 climaxing. They turned and watched the wall, afraid of what 121 could say.

“Oh baby…oh baby…oh 511!”

511 and 494 looked at each other, both of them wide-eyed, and covered their mouths with their hands to keep their laughter quiet. “Holy shit,” 511 gasped. “I can’t believe she actually did it!”

“Excuse me? What the fuck was that?” 591 snapped.

“That was me calling out my boyfriend’s designation because you couldn’t even begin to get the job done, asshole!”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“It means that maybe if you could actually get it up tomorrow night, then maybe I won’t have to yell out my boyfriend’s designation,” 121 retorted. 494 and 511 started laughing so hard, they couldn’t even begin to speak, much less concentrate on what 121 said when she started talking again. “I sure as hell won’t be yelling out yours, but…” There was a small pause and then 121 started to speak again, her voice laden with sarcasm. “I’m sure that it happens to a lot of guys, 591. Would you like for me to ask around so that I can find out?”

“That’s real nice, 121,” 591 said, his voice as sarcastic as 121’s. “How would you like for me to tell Director Renfro tomorrow morning when she gets the reports from us that we not only failed to copulate, but that you called out somebody else’s designation? The director doesn’t look stupid. She’ll be able to draw her own conclusions from that.”

“Then I’ll make you a deal,” 121 told him. “We report that we copulated as ordered and I won’t say a word to anybody about the fact that you couldn’t get it up. Only one condition: you better get it up tomorrow night or all bets are off.” Her voice became syrupy sweet. "Consider that an order. I outrank your ass by a long shot, remember?"

“Fine. Consider it done,” 591 agreed reluctantly. There was the sound of him and 121 getting dressed and then silence.

“Yes!” 511 cheered. He exchanged a triumphant high-five with 494. “I am the only one who can satisfy my woman. You slept with her before we started dating, so you don’t count.”

“Thanks,” 494 said. He looked as the triumph faded from 511’s face and some of the hurt returned. “Are you going to be okay, 511?”

“I don’t know,” 511 replied honestly. He looked in the direction of 121’s cell, his expression worried.

494 smiled knowingly. “Leave it to me. I’ll bribe the guard into letting the two of you have a few minutes to yourselves. It’ll only be a few minutes, though.”

“It’ll be better than nothing,” 511 said gratefully. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” 494 told him. They smiled at each other.

TBC