What's Next? -- Chapter 41

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.).

“Get all of us together for a family night,” Max muttered as she stood in the living room of her apartment with Zack and most of their family more than a week later, holding baby Gabrielle in her arms. “You, me, our sibs, Alec, Biggs, Sasha, all of the little guys…it’s almost just as well that Becky and Jeff weren’t able to make it here tonight because I’m pretty sure that we’re going to be breaking some kind of maximum occupancy rule in this place as it is.”

“Don’t worry, the kid can take all of these people in here,” Krit said. “She’s your daughter. She can handle anything.” He leaned down so that he was looking at his niece. “Am I right, Gabby, or am I right? You’re a tough cookie, huh? Yes you are.”

“The greatest thing about having a photographic memory is that I’ll never be able to forget the sound of you talking in a baby talk voice,” Max said sweetly.

Wayne grinned mischievously and held up a digital voice recorder. “And the greatest thing about these things is that we’ll have it on file so that we can blackmail him later!”

Krit’s jaw dropped. “Wayne, for the love of God, please do not tell me that you were actually recording that.”

“You can see the recorder for yourself,” Wayne said. “What do you think?”

“Krit, if you’re absolutely going to have to beat Wayne up, wait until both of you are out of sight and out of hearing range of Gabby,” Zack said, giving both of the siblings in question the evil eye. “Wayne, why on Earth would you bring a digital voice recorder with you to this?”

“I thought I just said why,” Wayne said innocently.

“Besides…” Zane said wickedly. He took out a recorder from his jeans pocket and held it up. “Who ever said that Wayne was the only one who had one of these things?” He laughed at the furious look on Krit’s face. “Come on, baby brother. It’s one of the most basic rules in the book: always have backups.”

Zack sighed. “My daughter is only nine days old and she’s already being subjected to this. Unbelievable.”

“Look at it this way,” Max said. “She’s going to be growing up around this so it’s just as well that she’s being exposed to it now.” She smirked at Krit, Zane, and Wayne. “The sooner she sees and hears this, the sooner that she’ll realize how moronic you’re being and learn how to either deal with you or ignore you appropriately. Besides, the Three Musketeers here are actually watching their language around the baby. I’m proud of them for that.”

“Thanks, Maxie,” Wayne said.

“You guys are all neurotic,” Rena said.

“You weren’t complaining about me being a crazy man when…” Zane started to say. He caught the look that Zack was giving him and he winced. “Yeah, I’ll keep that one to myself.” His eyes still had a wicked sparkle in them and he walked over to Rena and whispered something in her ear quietly enough so that nobody else would be able to hear them. Rena blushed and Zane grinned. “Later, babe?”

“Definitely later,” Rena agreed. She turned around and waved as Biggs, Sasha, Jade, Julia, and Andrea entered the apartment. “Looks like there’s the rest of us.”

“I guess so,” Sasha said. She set down Julia and watched as she and her sisters ran off to a corner of the room to play with Little Max. “You girls behave yourselves, okay? Daddy and I will be keeping our eyes on you even when you think that we’re not.”

“Hey, Sasha,” Alec said. He looked over at her and grinned wickedly. “You’re looking pretty big. I’d say you’re going to pop at any given second. Either that or you’re going to have twins again.” His grinned widened at the look of sheer terror on Biggs’ face. “Yeah, what was that you were saying when I told you about how nervous I was before Tony was born, Biggs? You got something to say to me now?”

“Nothing that I can say in front of the kids,” Biggs said.

“You guys are unbelievable,” Sasha said. “Alec, I’m sure as hell not going to be having the baby right here, right now. I’ve got a month to go. And I am definitely not having twins this time around.” She narrowed his eyes. “Unless you would like to have reason to be apologizing to Brin for not being able to have any more children with her, shut it.”

Alec smiled innocently. “Shut what?”

“Is being around all of these small children having an impact on your behavior?” Max wondered. “Then again, it is kind of hard to tell with you.”

“That hurts,” Alec said.

“I aim to please,” Max said. She looked down at her daughter and smiled. “What do you think, sweetie? Did Mommy get the best of Uncle Alec or what? Mommy got him good, didn’t she?”

“You really do look pretty good for only having given birth not even a week-and-a-half ago,” Jace said. She nodded to Zack. “I looked like roadkill for awhile after I had Little Max. Remember when you swung down to Mexico to visit me that first time, Zack? I looked absolutely atrocious.”

“Look who’s using big words,” Jondy said in mock surprise. “She’s smart!”

“Sometimes I think that you’re really a blond and that your hair is a dye job,” Jace said. “You’re too dumb to be a brunette sometimes.”

“Not one of your finer comebacks, sis,” Jondy said. “I think that one ranks down there with that line that you said to me when we were kids back at Manticore and we’d just gotten back to our barracks for the night after we’d had to run the assault course, I think it was the Spring of ’08, and I had tripped you—“

“Most of us were there and those of us that weren’t don’t need to hear about it,” Zack interrupted.

“Jace, sweetheart, why do you bait her like that?” Victor wondered.

“You have a younger sister, don’t you?” Jace pointed out. Victor started to open his mouth again before he understood the point that Jace had been trying to make and he nodded. Jace smiled and gave him a kiss.

“That’s yucky, Mommy and Daddy,” Little Max said from where she was playing with the other little girls.

“I’m impressed,” Alec said. “She’s already disgusted by parental PDAs.” He made a silly face at his son, who was being held by Brin, and grinned when Anthony laughed in response. “My turn to hold the baby.”

“No, it’s my turn,” Wayne said.

“Technically, you got to hold her before either Zack or I got to,” Max pointed out.

“Please let me hold Gabby?” Alec asked.

“I don’t believe it, he asked nicely,” Max said, pretending to sound surprised. She handed Alec the baby.

“She really is beautiful,” Alec said. “I think she looks just like your mom, Zack.”

“Yeah, she really does,” Zack said. “Mom said that my grandfather told her that when he’d got the picture that she’d sent of Gabby that it could have been my mother as a baby. The only major difference that he could see is that Gabby’s hair is darker.” He took Gabrielle from Alec. “I wish that she and my dad didn’t have to go back to D.C. last week. I miss them.”

“Is this Zack getting all sentimental?” Zane joked. He looked down at Gabrielle. “Gabby, what are you doing to your father?”

“Zane, I’m going to be nice because I’m holding Gabby and I don’t want to accidentally hurt her,” Zack said. “But as soon as I get the opportunity, I will hurt you.”

“All this violence around her,” Wayne said. “Tsk, tsk…” He caught the look that Zack was giving him and immediately switched the topic. “Wow, will you look at that? It’s all clear outside. I don’t see a cloud in sight.”

“Real smooth,” Max said, snickering.

“Speaking of smooth, I heard that there’s a major X6 group vacation in the works for the summer,” Zane said. “Since Jeff finally got in touch with the rest of his brothers and sisters, they, Becky’s crew, and a couple of other friends of theirs are going to head down to Mexico for a couple of weeks in the summer…with no adult supervision.” He smiled innocently. “And I hear that the legal drinking age in Mexico is a lot lower than it is here.”

Krit pretended to be surprised. “You heard that they have a legal drinking age?” He and the other guys laughed at the look on Zack’s face. “Zack, Becky is a big girl. She can handle herself just fine.”

“Plus she has a boyfriend who is not only as good of a guy as they come, but who is more than willing to beat the living hell out of anybody who harasses Becky should she not be inclined to beat the crap out of them herself,” Biggs added.

Zack shook his head and sighed. “I know, I know. How did you hear about this group trip?”

“Fixit was telling Krit and I about it at work today when she asked for that time off,” Zane said. “I think that’s a great idea. It would have been cool if we’d gotten the chance to have done that when we were teenagers. I’m glad that those guys have the opportunity and are taking full advantage of it.” He smiled and leaned down so that he was looking at Gabrielle again. “And what about you, Ms. Murphy? Are you going to go somewhere for summer or Spring Break when you’re old enough and give your daddy a heart attack, huh?”

“Guevara-Murphy,” Max corrected automatically. Zane looked at her and she shrugged. “I’m going to keep my name after Zack and I get married.”

“I’m not surprised,” Brin said. “I had a feeling you would.” She turned to look at Alec and Biggs. “Please tell me that neither of you put a bet on whether she would keep her name or not.”

“For once, we didn’t put a bet on it,” Alec said. Brin looked at him skeptically and he shrugged. “Hey, the last bet we made that had to do with Max’s personal life was the one about whether the baby would be a boy or a girl and Zack already punched us for that one. I’m not making another bet on Max’s life ever again.

“That’s my boy,” Brin said. She gave Alec a kiss and laughed when she saw the somewhat disgusted look on her son’s face. “Oh, so is it illegal for all parents to be affectionate around each other when their children are around? I’ll tell you what: how about you say hi to your new cousin?”

“Weird, Mommy,” Anthony protested.

“She is not weird, she is just very little,” Brin said. “You were like that when you were first born.” She gave Anthony a kiss on his forehead and set him down. “Go play with your other cousins.” Brin turned to Max and Zack. “Don’t worry, he’s a year old. He thinks everything is weird.” She caught the wicked look in Alec’s eyes and held out a finger in warning. “Don’t say anything. If this has to do with a bet…”

“I promised and I meant it,” Alec assured Brin. They all talked and laughed for the rest of the evening and a decent part of the night until the children eventually started to get tired. Once that started to happen, the others left several at a time until finally Max, Zack, and Gabrielle were left by themselves in the apartment.

“That was some night,” Max said. She took the baby from Zack. “Our family is something else.”

“They are,” Zack agreed. He smiled. “I’m grateful for them, though. Call me sentimental if you want, but I’m so thankful that I have you, Gabby, my parents, Becky, all of our brothers and sisters that are still alive, and the others…I never thought that this would have been possible.” He leaned over and kissed Max. “I love you so much, Maxie.” He grinned and leaned down and gave his daughter a gentle kiss on her forehead. “And I love you too, Gabrielle.”