Together -- Chapter 74

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.).

“Hey, thanks for coming over,” Jeff said to Becky as he let her into his apartment later that night.

“No problem,” Becky said. “I was kind of bored. There was nothing good on TV and I didn’t feel like going out to Crash tonight since I was there last night for the Valentine’s Day party and Max and the others are over at Brin and Maggie’s place going crazy over little Anthony.”

“When are you going to see him?” Jeff asked.

“Probably tomorrow,” Becky said.

“Why aren’t you out helping your brothers get settled into Terminal City?” Jeff wondered.

“I was there earlier,” Becky told him. “Kevin and Kyle are gonna share an apartment there with this one guy from Unit 2 from back in Wyoming and an X6 from New York. It’s a kind of big apartment, but it’s falling apart. No real surprise considering it’s in the middle of TC. Oh well. Trying to fix the plumbing in the bathroom should give the four of them something to do.”

“It should, especially if it was anything like this apartment that I had to stay in when I went on my only solo mission before Manticore burned,” Jeff said. “I got back from it about a week before you went out on your solo. They sent me over to Bulgaria to spy on some diplomats there, both American and foreign. It was something about possible weapons smuggling and biological weapon plans being stolen and sold. My cover was that I was a struggling writer straight out of school so needless to say, I wasn’t supposed to have any money and the apartment that I was in was an almost complete dump. I was in Sofia for about a month and for at least the first half of that time, when I wasn’t out gathering information like I was ordered to do, I was trying to fix the plumbing and just about everything else in the apartment.” He laughed. “It was enough to make me miss my cell back at Manticore.”

“They actually made your cover be a writer?” Becky said skeptically. “They definitely got the struggling part right, though. You can barely compose a decent-sounding greeting card, much less a story.”

“Yeah, and try writing one in Bulgarian,” Jeff agreed. “If you’re as creative writing-ly challenged as I am, whether you’re a transgenic or not, it’s not easy or fun.”

“It could have been worse,” Becky said. “I was over in some middle-of-nowhere town in Siberia and I was freezing my ass off every single night. Try doing espionage when you have to bundle up like mad. I’d never thought I’d find a place that was even colder and snowed worse than Gillette in winter, but I did. I was so happy that I got to fly back to Seattle to check in with Command every few weeks. If I didn’t, that weather would have driven me nuts.”

“It was nice having you with my unit when you were based out of Seattle for those two missions,” Jeff commented.

“I think 224 would have disagreed,” Becky said. “I’m glad that asshole wasn’t in your unit, but man did he have a problem with me.”

“He was threatened by you,” Jeff pointed out. “No offense or anything, but it was nice to have him be primarily threatened by someone else.” He sighed. “He never deliberately tried to hurt me or sabotage me in anyway, but whenever our units would spar against each other or run some exercise against each other, he’d usually single me out if he got the opportunity or he’d fight a little too hard. It’s not that I couldn’t take it, far from it. It’s just that 224 had to have been the most territorial and had the biggest ego of anybody that I’d known. He was always paranoid that I’d take his place as the Seattle X6 squad leader. When they ran those trials almost two years ago, he and I came out dead even. The only reason that he got selected as C.O. instead of me was the fact that he was a month older than I am.”

“I got his hackles up, that’s for sure,” Becky recalled. “I remember the first time I met him. I was at Seattle for about two days before Riley and I went out on our mission and he tried to hit on me.”

“You left him in one piece?” Jeff said, pretending to be shocked.

Becky playfully punched Jeff on the shoulder. “We were in Manticore, you moron. I couldn’t just do ballistic on him, though I have the distinct feeling now that Renfro would have gotten some kind of enjoyment from knowing that I would have ruined any kind of enjoyment that 224 would have gotten for a long time and she would have gone easy on me.” She shrugged. “He actually wasn’t nasty to me after I turned him down. He just said okay and went off. I guess he figured that he’d get another chance. Then your unit and his unit sparred against each other and I beat him. It was close, but I still beat him, and it was asshole all the way from that point forward.” She walked into his kitchen. “What have you got to eat around here?”

Jeff followed her. “Not too much. I need to do some grocery shopping or just live off of take out for awhile.”

“Not too much?” Becky echoed as she shut the door of Jeff’s refrigerator. “Jeff, all you’ve got in the fridge is a box of baking powder and a mostly empty carton of eggs that are a week past their expiration date.”

“Do you want to go out then?” Jeff asked.

“Sure,” Becky said. She grinned. “That sounds great.”

“Actually,” Jeff said nervously. He cleared his throat. “How about we go out as in on a date?”

Becky was quiet for a few moments as butterflies suddenly frantically fluttered in her stomach. “A date? As in a boyfriend/girlfriend date?”

“Yeah,” Jeff said. “Becky, I…I want to go out with you. I want to date you, I…I’m in love with you. I don’t know if you feel the same way or not, but…I hope you do, but…”

“I do,” Becky said quietly. Max was right. I do feel that way about Jeff. Have I always felt that way? When did I start feeling that way? “I do feel the same way about you. When I started feeling the same way, whether when it was when we first met back in Seattle at the end of August of ’18 or when it was when we met back up again at Crash before I went with Zack to check up on Kyle and Xavier and Jondy, I really don’t know but…I love you.”

“I love you, too,” Jeff said. He leaned forward and kissed Becky. When they parted, he grinned at her. “Man, I…”

“What?” Becky asked.

“Can’t believe this is real,” Jeff said. “I can’t believe that you actually feel the same way that I do. I can’t believe that such a wonderful woman would want to date me at all, much less be in love with me.”

“For someone who normally can’t write poetry or stories or do anything creative like that for shit, you definitely have a way with words,” Becky teased.

“Only for you,” Jeff said. His grin only got wider. “Come on, let’s go get some food.”

“I’m with you,” Becky said. They grabbed their jackets and left the apartment.

TBC