Together -- Chapter 57

Disclaimer: The TV show Dark Angel, all of the characters that appeared on it (Max, Zack, Logan, 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: I’m really sorry if this sucks, but I’m not very good at writing this kind of stuff either. More spoiler-ish stuff for “The Berrisford Agenda” as well as for “…And Jesus Brought A Casserole” and “Designate This.”

Alec stood behind Jeff in the security office of the Seaside Medical and Rehabilitation Center and watched as Jeff hacked his way through the center’s security cameras. “What do you think? Everything look good so far?”

“Everything looks pretty good,” Jeff agreed. “The place doesn’t have a lot of guards patrolling the hallways, even for this time of night, and we’ve already put these two losers to sleep.” He pointed to the unconscious security guards in the corner of the room. “The coma patients are located in the east wing on the third floor. Just tell me which patient is Rachel and we’ll be all set.”

“I will,” Alec said. He watched as Jeff flipped through the security camera footage of various patients’ rooms. “Stop there. That’s Rachel.” He sighed in frustration. “Great, her father’s here tonight.”

“Should we bail out and try again tomorrow night?” Jeff asked. “We can just tell Max that we’re going to try again tomorrow and then the three of us will meet Becky at the car and we’ll leave.”

“He’s going to have to leave,” Alec said. “From the recon that we did this afternoon, visitors aren’t supposed to stay overnight, but then again, Berrisford’s so damn rich he probably paid them so that he can stay as long as he wants with Rachel.”

“What do you want to do? It’s your call,” Jeff said.

Alec thought for a few moments. “Let’s wait for a few moments and see if Berrisford decides to go home.”

“All right,” Jeff said. They waited and continued to watch the security camera feed from Rachel’s room. After a few minutes, they saw Mr. Berrisford pick up his jacket and leave Rachel’s room. “Looks like you’re good to go. She’s in room 372.”

“Thanks,” Alec said. “Wish me luck.”

“Good luck,” Jeff said.

Alec nodded and left the security office and went to the stairs and quickly walked up to the third floor. He opened the door and started to head in the direction of Rachel’s room. He found it without any trouble and paused and took a deep breath and tried to control the butterflies in his stomach. He started to open the door when he heard Jeff’s voice coming from the earpiece that he was wearing. “Jeff, what was that?”

“He’s heading back to the room,” Jeff said. “You need to get out of there now.”

“Where is he?” Alec asked.

“About to get out of the elevator,” Jeff said quietly. “He’s right near you.”

Alec sighed. “I’ll deal with this. Don’t worry. If I need help, I’ll let you know.”

“Okay,” Jeff said. He sounded a little worried, but he didn’t say anything else.

Mr. Berrisford stopped in his tracks when he spotted Alec. “You. You’re the bastard who put my daughter here.”

“I guess so. If I had decided not to warn you that somebody else from Manticore had planted a bomb in your car, then she’d definitely be dead now,” Alec said.

“How could you?” Mr. Berrisford said. “How could you have spied on us and just played my daughter like that? Do you think that I’m an idiot, Mr.—hell, I don’t know what your real name is or if they even gave you kids names with those damn numbers. I know my Rachel very well and I knew the look that she would give you. Her mother gave me that exact same look around the time that I’m guessing that you would have been in diapers.”

“I never messed with Rachel’s feelings,” Alec insisted. “I was sent to spy on you. They gave me a mission and I went to perform the mission as I had been ordered. That was what my life was like back then. Things changed when I met Rachel. I still don’t know what it was, but she changed everything for me. It was the first time in my life that I didn’t know what the hell I was going to do. Actually, I knew what I was going to do. I didn’t know exactly how I was going to do it.”

“Really?” Mr. Berrisford said. “I thought that they taught you how to plant a bomb.”

“Yes, they taught me that when I was a little kid,” Alec confirmed. “You know exactly what I meant, but since you don’t want to admit it, I’ll go right out and say it. I was in love with your daughter. I still love Rachel. I didn’t want to kill her. I had no plans to kill her or you. You were the first people who were genuinely nice to me. You weren’t nice to me because you were supposed to pretend to be, you actually were nice. I didn’t want to destroy that. They ordered me to take out you and Rachel when I found the proof that you were close to exposing us, but I wasn’t going to do that. I planned to fake the explosion when you and Rachel had gotten back from the city and gotten you two away.”

“I’m sure you were,” Mr. Berrisford said coldly. “You’ll have to excuse me if I don’t believe a word that you’re saying.”

“That’s cool. I don’t blame you there,” Alec acknowleged. “The point is that I want to apologize for spying on you for Manticore.”

“Apologize?” Mr. Berrisford said. “You know what would be an apology? Bringing my daughter back to me. She is the best part of my life and until you have children of your own, not that Manticore will ever let you, you’ll never understand why I won’t accept your apology.”

“Funny you should mention that,” Alec said. “I will be having a child of my own in about two, two-and-a-half months from now. Manticore did allow it. They allowed his or her conception, anyway. I’d have to be an idiot not to figure out that you’re curious about why Manticore hasn’t contacted you in months so I’ll play nice and fill you in on that. Manticore’s DNA lab was located in it’s facility over in Wyoming. Three months after Rachel was injured, four of the rogue Manticore soldiers—I’m assuming that you know at least a little about them—went back home and blew up the DNA lab. The funding to Manticore was cut and they consolidated everything to their facility which was located fairly close to here. They wanted more soldiers and since they couldn’t splice and dice them together and put ‘em in some nice young lady, they had us older soldiers get together and make new soldiers the old fashioned way. Then Eyes Only for whatever reason decided that he was going to try to expose Manticore. He didn’t do it, but he got too close for the committee that was in charge of Manticore’s comfort and they ordered the director to torch the place, which she did. Most of us got out, the mother of my unborn baby included.”

“It’s gone?” Berrisford said hopefully. “It’s really gone?”

“It’s really gone,” Alec confirmed.

“So what are you doing now? You still claim to love Rachel but you’re having a nice relationship with the mother of your child?” Berrisford said.

“I never said that I was in a relationship with the mother of my child,” Alec said. “We’re friends. I do love Rachel. I came to see her and apologize to her too. I need to see her. You can be in the room if you want if you still don’t believe that I won’t hurt her.”

Berrisford sighed and opened the door to Rachel’s room. “Go ahead.”

“Thank you,” Alec said. He walked inside Rachel’s room and sat down in a chair next to the bed and ignored the fact that her father was watching them from the doorway. “Hey, Rachel. I’m sorry it took me so long to come here to see you but I couldn’t help it. Okay, that was a bad excuse but it’s unfortunately the truth. Rachel, I want to say how sorry I am for…everything. If I hadn’t come into your life, you wouldn’t be lying here in this bed. You’d be in school right now complaining to your father about how bad your professors are and being with your friends and maybe dating a guy.” He tried to shake off the jealousy that he felt when he said that. “The last time you were this quiet was the day that we met. You didn’t say anything to me other than ‘Hello, I’m Rachel’ and your dad said to me that you were shy around strangers but that you were so talkative when you got to know people. He was right. I never minded listening to you talk. You have the sweetest voice. I wish that I’d told you that before. I wish that we’d gotten to go out on our real date. I remember the day I’d asked you on the date, don’t you? It was two days before…the last day I saw you before tonight and we were finishing our lesson and you looked so proud of yourself because you had mastered that one part that you’d been having trouble with and your smile was just so beautiful and I wanted to see it again so badly and I just asked you out on a date. It was the first time that I’d asked a girl to go on a date of my own free will and not because I’d been asked to ask a girl out by someone else. That moment was so perfect for me and I…” Alec broke down in tears. “I screwed everything up so badly. I love you. I love you so much.” He kissed her on the cheek and got up and grabbed a piece of paper and a pen that was on the bedside table and scribbled a number down and handed it to her father. “Call me if anything happens. I can’t—“

Berrisford nodded in sympathy. “I know. I’ll call you if anything changes.”

“Thank you,” Alec said. He left the room and headed back for the stairs and back to the security office. He opened the door and motioned to Jeff, who typed in a few commands before getting up and following Alec out of the office. They met up with Max by the door of the center and they walked outside to Alec’s car. Becky got out of the driver’s seat and got in the back seat with Max as Alec and Jeff got in the front and they drove off. Alec dropped the three of them off at their apartments before heading back to his own. He parked the car and went up to and into his apartment and just sat down on the couch with his head in his hands for a long time until the phone rang. He jumped and looked at the clock. Two-thirty-five? I must have dozed off or something. I guess Sketchy needs a lift home from Crash or whatever. He picked up the phone. “Hello?”

“It’s me,” Berrisford said quietly. “She’s gone.”

“When did it happen?” Alec asked, trying not to burst into tears again.

“Only a few minutes ago,” Berrisford replied. “I…thank you for coming to see Rachel. Thank you for making her happy.”

“You’re welcome,” Alec said. “Thank you for letting me know.” He hung up the phone, went into his bedroom, flopped down on the bed, and cried himself to sleep.

TBC