Nightmares Redux -- Chapter 1

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:  This part (and the rest of the fic) takes place sometime about a year after “What’s Next?” ended.

“I can’t believe that they’re in California,” Max said as she, Zack, and Gabrielle walked back into their house on a humid August evening. “It already seems so quiet in here.”

“Yeah, tell me about it,” Gabrielle said. “I’m almost expecting them to come sliding down the banister with the one who got down first trying to yank the other one off.” She grinned. “Do you think that they’ll be homesick already and call us or will they be all manly about it and wait awhile before they give a peep?”

“They’ll be calling us later tonight,” Zack said. “I bet they’ll wake me up in the process.”

Max grinned. “No doubt about it. So, what do you guys want to do about dinner?”

“As long as it involves not cooking,” Gabrielle said. She saw the look that Zack was giving her and she sighed and fought the urge to roll her eyes. “Dad, I’m the only one in this family that can actually cook and we’ve been on the road for hours. I’m not in the mood to do it.”

“Good thing that we’re here, then,” a cheerful male voice said from behind the door. The three of them jumped and then Max went over to the door and opened it to see Alec, Brin, Anthony, and Jillian standing outside. Alec held up two plastic bags. “Brin thought that you guys wouldn’t be in the mood to do anything special about dinner, so we thought that we’d bring some over. You wouldn’t mind if we helped you with the food, do you?”

“You haven’t done much with his manners,” Max said to Brin as she took the bags from Alec and let them inside the house.

“There’s only so much one can do with a man by the time that they’re an adult,” Brin replied. “Thanks for letting us stay for dinner, Maxie.”

“No problem,” Max said. “It’s starting to feel a little lonely here already.”

“If there’s anybody that knows the feeling, it’s us,” Brin said sympathetically. “At least Gabrielle’s going to school close by and living at home. Since Anthony moved into his own apartment last month, it will seem that much emptier in our house when we have to take Jillian to school.”

Zack nodded. “When are you going to be starting, Jillian?”

“Next week,” Jillian said. “I can’t wait to go. A lot of my friends from high school are going to be there with me. It’ll be great.”

“Two more weeks for me,” Gabrielle said.

“Look at the big senior,” Anthony teased.

“Look who’s talking, dumbass,” Gabrielle retorted. “When you started your senior year last year, you were walking around like you thought that you were the king of the world or something like that. You’ve got room to talk.”

“Stop the arguing,” Zack said. Gabrielle and Anthony immediately grew quiet and he smiled a little. “That’s better.”

Brin smiled as she poked her head into the living room. “Besides, dinner’s on the table. We brought sushi, Gabby.”

“Awesome,” Gabrielle said. “Thank you, Aunt Brin.”

“It’s a good thing that Jeff and Kylie aren’t here,” Alec remarked as the seven of them sat down around the table and passed around the food. “Kylie would inhale all of this within seconds.” He popped a piece of tuna roll into his mouth and quickly ate it. “I called him this morning to invite the two of them over to our place for dinner, but he said that he said that he just wanted to stay home with Kylie for dinner since Becky had to leave last night to do that lecture series in Colorado.”

“I hate giving lectures and speeches,” Max grumbled. “I remember they asked me to do a few the first couple of years after the Familiars went down. Just clean up really nice, put on a cheesy smile, and start running your mouth off. Sometimes it wasn’t so bad, but there were a few times when it seemed like it was too damn fake.”

“Better you than Zack,” Brin pointed out. “There is no way that I could ever see him giving a lecture on anything unless it was a briefing before a mission.”

“You nailed that one right on the head,” Zack admitted. They continued to eat and talk animatedly. When they had finally finished, Gabrielle, Anthony, and Jillian went upstairs to Gabrielle’s room while the others remained downstairs.

“Ooooh, you’re letting a boy into your room,” Anthony teased. “What will your daddy do to me when he finds out?”

“Very funny and the answer to your question is twist you in so many directions that by the time that he’s done with you, you’ll look like a deformed piece of Silly Putty,” Gabrielle said. “You don’t think that he’d actually do that? Do you remember that guy that I’d dated for a few months last year, the X9?”

Anthony thought about it for a few moments. “He was that really tall guy with the freckles, right?”

“Yeah, that was Robin,” Gabrielle said. “The night before I broke up with him, he took me home from the party that we had gone to and he came inside the house with me. Mom was out-of-town with your mom, Aunt Jondy, Aunt Rena, Aunt Jace, and Aunt Syl on a girls-only weekend and Dad, Derek, and Jordan were upstairs sleeping or so I thought. So I told Robin to wait for me in the living room while I ran upstairs to my room for a second. Derek was having trouble sleeping that night and he heard me in my room and went in to talk with me and I guess Robin had gotten impatient so he came upstairs after me and got annoyed when he saw that I was talking with my brother and he started to get in both my face and Derek’s. I wasn’t in the mood for that kind of crap and I asked Robin to leave and that I would call him the next day. Robin got pissed and told me no, and I should mention that he wasn’t exactly polite about it, and then that pissed Derek off and he told Robin to shut the hell up and not to talk to me like that. Robin punched Derek and then Derek punched Robin right back and I was about to jump into it to join Derek in beating the shit out of Robin when Robin was yanked back. Derek and I looked up and there was Dad. I’ve got to hand it to my father. He gave Robin a chance to explain himself but Robin ran his mouth off and called both Derek and especially me some choice names right to Dad’s face and then…to make a long story a little shorter, we gave him an ice pack, dropped him off at the emergency room at Harbor Lights, I returned his car to him the next day when I went to his place to break up with him, and Robin left me and the rest of my family alone after that.” She smirked. “X9s apparently don’t heal quite as fast as X5s, X6s, and X8s do, so he looked like he’d had the crap kicked out of him for a couple of days.” She sighed. “As much as I rag on the twins, they really are great. Derek would stand up for me like that a billion times more if he had to and so would Jordan. I miss them already.”

“I know how you feel,” Anthony said sympathetically. He paused and then a wicked grin, identical to Alec’s, spread across his face. “It’s nice to know that deep down underneath the badass, there’s a girl there. I guess that I really shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. I mean, just because you don’t get all weepy—“ He laughed when Gabrielle punched him. “Just trying to cheer you up, Gabby.”

“You want to know what will cheer me up?” Gabrielle asked sweetly. “Seeing you run over by a Mack truck.”

“And I want to see your mouth zippered one of these days,” Anthony returned. “I know that you have a tiny bit of wolf DNA that you got from your dad, but I’m wondering just how much of it you have because you are really acting like one royal—“

“Continue with that line of thought and I’ll cause enough brain damage to make having another line of thought difficult,” Gabrielle said. “I mean, I know that you have enough trouble trying to have a single thought as it is, but this should make it even harder for you to use that squishy thing that’s inside of your skull that you seem to like to call your brain. What do you think?”

“That’s so generous of you,” Anthony said. “If only there was something that I could do to return the favor.”

“Are Anthony and Gabrielle fighting again?” Brin asked from the living room.

“Yeah, Mom. When do they ever not fight?” Jillian replied. She grinned and ignored the evil looks that both her older brother as well as Gabrielle were sending her way. “It was starting to get good, too.”

“Unfortunately, we’re going to have to cut the round short,” Alec said. “We’re going to get back home now. Get your behinds in gear.”

“Okay, we’re coming,” Anthony said. He turned back to Gabrielle. “’Bye, Gabby. Try not to get too mushy-girly, okay?”

“Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out,” Gabrielle said, but then she smiled a little. “I’ll see you around, Tony.”

Anthony smiled. “Catch you later, Gabby.” He and Jillian left. Gabrielle hung around in her room for a few minutes by herself before she went back downstairs and sat down next to Max on the couch.

“Where’s Dad?” Gabrielle asked.

“He went into the home office to call Uncle Biggs to check up on things at work,” Max said. “He should only be a few minutes unless something major happened while we were away.” She smirked. “I heard you and Anthony arguing upstairs.”

Gabrielle rolled her eyes. “The guy can be so damn annoying. I don’t get it, Mom. He does actually act like a decent guy sometimes but most of the time…” She trailed off and made a motion as if she was strangling somebody. “At least I won’t see him around campus when school starts back up in two weeks.” She stood up. “Speaking of calling Uncle Biggs, I told Jade, Julia, Andrea, and everybody that I would call them when I got back to Seattle. Love you, Mom.” She walked over to and then up the stairs.

“Biggs says everything’s fine at the office. Nothing out of the ordinary happened while we were gone,” Zack said as he entered the room. He sat down where Gabrielle had been. “She’s doing some checking in of her own?”

“Yep,” Max confirmed.

“I’m glad that we’re back,” Zack said, putting his arm around Max. “It’s not that I mind going away and being on the road, but it’s great to be home.” He grinned. “It really does make a difference when you really have a home to get back to. I’ll never take it for granted, no matter what.”

“Neither will I,” Max agreed. She leaned in to kiss Zack. He wrapped his arms around Max, not wanting to let her go. They only separated when they heard an aggravated sigh from upstairs.

“He is the biggest son-of-a—“

“Still complaining about him,” Zack remarked.

“It takes her awhile to stop sometimes,” Max conceded. She got a thoughtful look on her face. I wonder if…

“What are you thinking?” Zack asked suspiciously.

Nothing that I should say within Gabby’s hearing range. “I’ll tell you later,” Max promised. She leaned back against her husband and smiled. “Trust me.”