Nightmares Redux -- Chapter 4

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.).

“What do you think?” Zack asked Max as they and Gabrielle were driving over to Wayne and Jondy’s house the following night. “Do you want to get away for a couple of days, just the two of us?”

“Maybe,” Max said. “We haven’t been camping in ages.” She grinned wickedly and lowered her voice. “Just the two of us…under the stars…”

“Mom,” Gabrielle groaned. “Can you and Dad feel like you’re the only two people in the general vicinity when you actually are the only two people in the general vicinity?”

Max smiled apologetically. “Sorry about that, baby girl.”

“It’s cool,” Gabrielle said. “I guess it could have been worse.” She sighed as Zack pulled over to the side of the road and stopped the car. “I don’t know how we’re going to cram everybody down in Uncle Wayne and Aunt Jondy’s basement.”

“Well, there’ll only be ten of us,” Max told her as they all got out of the car. “Believe me, I was wondering the same thing.” They walked up to the front door and Max rang the doorbell. “Will you hurry up and answer the door already before I have to pick the lock?”

“Sorry, that’ll take you a while. Mom and Dad put in a new lock last week.” The door opened to reveal Wayne and Jondy’s son, Vincent. “Hi, Aunt Max, Uncle Zack, Gabby. What’s up?”

“Hello, Vincent,” Zack said. “Where is everybody?”

“Down in the basement,” Vincent informed him. “Everyone’s here except for Aunt Rena and Natalie.” He led them through the house to a set of steps and down into the basement, which Wayne had set up as an entertainment room years before. “Mom, Dad, they’re here.”

“Great,” Wayne said. He got up from the couch that he’d been sitting on and walked over to Zack and gave him a quick hug. “Glad to see you guys. If you’re hungry, we’ve got some grub around somewhere…Vinny, have you seen the pretzels or the potato chips around anywhere?”

“Yeah, Dad,” Vincent said. He pointed over to where Alec and Anthony were sitting on another couch in the room. “Uncle Alec has the chips and Tony has the pretzels.” He snickered at the annoyed look that Anthony sent him. “What? You’re hogging them.”

“Yeah, it’s time you learned how to share.” Gabrielle sat down next to Anthony, grabbed the bowl from him, and grabbed a handful of pretzels. “Thanks.”

“Thank goodness that your mother taught you manners,” Anthony muttered.

“You’re welcome, Anthony,” Max said pleasantly. Their heads turned back towards the stairs as they heard a noise from above. “Sounds like Rena and Natalie are here.”

“Can you go answer the door again, Vincent?” Wayne asked.

Vincent let out a long-suffering sigh. “Why do I have to do everything around here?”

“Don’t worry, you little smart mouth,” Jondy said affectionately, getting up and ruffling her son’s hair as she headed towards the stairs. “I’ll go let them in.” She left the room and returned several moments later, with Rena and Natalie, Rena and Zane’s fourteen-year-old daughter, following her. “Looks like everybody’s here now.”

“I would say so,” Rena said. “I’m sorry we’re late.”

“Not really,” Jondy said. “Don’t worry about it. Where are Zane and the boys? Why couldn’t they make it tonight?”

“It’s their guy’s night out tonight,” Rena said. “I have no idea what male bonding activity Zane could possibly do with a sixteen-year-old and an eleven-year old, but who knows?”

“I know I don’t want to know,” Natalie said as she plopped down on the floor, grabbing some chips from the bowl that Alec still held as she did so.

“You know, you guys all seem to get a lot of these ideas from me,” Alec remarked. “I would have special guys only time with Tony here since he was little and I know that Wayne insisted on making this basement into an entertainment room after he and his little woman got this house well after Brin, Tony, and I moved into ours.”

“Do you guys have to turn everything into a competition?” Max said, exasperated.

“Hey, neither of us said anything about this being a competition,” Wayne said innocently. His eyes darted over towards Zack and he started to make another comment, but decided to keep his mouth shut at the last moment. “What do you guys want to watch? Do you want to see whatever’s on the television or do you want to pop in a DVD? We’ve got plenty of those.”

“I don’t know,” Zack said. “I’m personally in the mood for just seeing whatever happens to be on the TV. Max?”

Max shrugged. “I don’t have that much of a clue on this one, myself. I guess I’m cool with whatever we figure out.”

“I want to see a movie,” Natalie declared.

“Boring,” Vincent said. “I was just watching a DVD earlier today over at Jimmy’s house. I want to see what’s on the boob tube.”

“You can do that any other time,” Natalie said.

“So can you,” Vincent countered.

“Time out,” Alec said. “Let’s try to work this out like we’re at least semi-adults.”

“That would exclude you from the conversation, wouldn’t it?” Max said dryly.

“I am so wounded, Maxie,” Alec said.

Gabrielle mentally rolled her eyes and tried to ignore the arguing of the others. “So, Tony, did you and your dad really have a guy’s only night when you were little?”

“Oh yeah,” Anthony confirmed. “We still do every Thursday night whenever it’s possible. It started back a couple of months after we moved into our house when I was three years old. Mom and Dad told me that I was going to have a new little brother or sister six months from then and I got upset because I was worried that Mom and Dad wouldn’t love me as much with a new baby around. Dad told me not to worry and that he and Mom would always love me and make time for me. Then he said to Mom not to bother us for the rest of the night unless we asked for her and he took me downstairs to our new entertainment room, sat me down in front of the TV down there, popped in one of his DVDs of pre-Pulse cartoons, parked himself next to me, and told me that we would do this every week if at all possible, just the two of us. And we did. It was mostly watching an hour or two of cartoons or movies, but sometimes he would take me out for something like ice cream or dinner.”

“That’s really sweet,” Gabrielle said.

“Yeah, it is,” Anthony agreed. He put his arm around Gabrielle’s shoulders and grinned. “So, Gabby, how has life been treating you since we saw each other yesterday?”

“Just fine,” Gabrielle said, smiling sweetly. “And I’m in a good mood, so I’m not going to bean you for putting your arm around me. I might even let you keep it there. But if you have any ideas of moving that arm south for the winter, your balls are going to be heading north for the summer. Get the picture?”

“As clear as crystal,” Anthony assured her. He removed his arm, leaving Gabrielle feeling surprisingly disappointed until she saw her father looking at them out of the corner of his eye and pretending not to be doing that. She mentally sighed in semi-disgust.

“So, have we figured out what we’re going to watch?” she asked.

“TV it is,” Max said.

“Let’s pop this thing on,” Wayne said. He grabbed the remote control and turned the television on. “Looks like the news is on Channel Four right now.” He frowned as the anchor talked on the program. “That’s got to be horrible when a kid just disappears like that. Just eight years old.”

“Yeah,” Zack agreed. He took a look at the screen, which was showing a picture of the child in question. “Is it just me, or does that boy look familiar?”

“He kind of does,” Max said.

“Maybe you guys saw him around somewhere in the street or something like that,” Jondy suggested.

“Maybe,” Zack echoed. They sat around uncomfortably for several moments. “So…”

“One step ahead of you,” Wayne said as he flipped to another channel.

“For once in his life,” Rena remarked, smirking as she got laughter from Max, Jondy, and the younger ones.

“Must you in front of the children?” Wayne said jokingly.

“Absolutely,” Rena said.

“You should know your sister by now, Wayne,” Max teased.

Wayne nodded. “And I’ll try not to bait her later, Zack, but I won’t make any guarantees.”

“At least he knows how I think,” Zack said dryly.