Chapter Text
It’s been a long few days. A few major assaults on hives around town, Blackwatch changing their patrol routes, and a new shipment of something to all their bases. Dana has been working tirelessly to discover just what that shipment was – if it was a new version of BloodTox then they need to know – but there was nothing. She was going to have to take greater risks, dig deeper then she normally would. It was starting to wear her down, constantly running up against dead ends or waiting, always waiting, for data to filter and process.
The young woman sighs and puts her head in her hands, trying to fend off a headache and her worsening mood. She tries to think of anything that might spur her on – she’s already consumed her weight in coffee and chocolate is too expensive under the current state of things.
The fuzzy recollection of something rises through the mire of her fatigue– a drink with a friend, now long since evacuated, a quiet afternoon in the rain at some hole in the wall café. Her friend taking a bag of cookies out of her backpack and offering her one like it was a secret. She’d asked her if they were doped, and her friend had erupted into such raucous laughter she’d almost sprung them – they were from home, she’d said, her mother had made them and sent them to her: small, round, covered in a sugar glaze, and heavily spiced, they were one of the nicest things she’d ever tasted. Her friend had called them something she couldn’t hope to pronounce and couldn’t now bring to mind.
God, what she wouldn’t give for a hint of that normalcy now, to be able to go out and meet a friend for a casual chat, not having to worry about who saw her where, or how close she got to exclusion zones, or how long she’d be away from her endless research.
A plan forms in her mind. It’s going to be an hour at least until this next dataset compiles, decrypts, and gives her anything workable. The world has gone to shit and she’s going to get her god damned cookies - and she can only think of one place to get them.
Dana stands, grabs a jacket and a beanie for good measure, tucking her hair up into the hat, thankful it’s cold enough outside she can incorporate it into her disguise. She retrieves a battered wallet from under a pile of printed radio transcripts and tries not to think of the stolen cards within. Alex had given her a credit card to use, to keep her purchases hidden. He’d just left it one day, with a post-it note with the pin number scrawled on it in his horrendous handwriting – doctor’s handwriting, she’d always joked; only one worse is a journalist’s, he’d always reply – and she didn’t ask who Sandra Dean was. There are things they just know to avoid talking to eachother about. It’s unsettling but she still has to eat and can't rely on Alex for deliveries.
----
She's almost there, literally just up the street. It’s been a hard trip in more ways then one, and now it’s getting worse. There's Blackwatch patrols everywhere, making Dana so nervous she’s sure she’d stutter if she spoke. She’s not the only one – everyone gives the soldiers a wide berth, hurries away from them on whatever business it is they have, because they all know the closer to the infection zones they get, the more ruthless Blackwatch become; itchy trigger fingers and all that.
A foot patrol down and across the street sees a woman who obviously is sick with something - flushed in the face, snuffling, sneezing. They pull her into a side street so fast she screams in alarm, turning Dana’s head from where she’s been concentrating on the path ahead. She can see the soldiers in a line across the alley mouth, can hear the growled voice of the patrol leader start grilling her, can hear the woman’s increasing desperate responses - she swears it's only hayfever, she's got the prescriptions to prove it, but her license puts her home address right on the edge of the nearest evacuated Hive zone, they're not believing her - their patrol leader steps away to make a call on his radio and then turns back.
A single gunshot cracks out.
The street empties. Dana just turns and leaves. She just goes right back home with all thoughts of the cookies banished from her mind.
----
The apartment is cluttered with familiar mess, little bits and pieces of information her mind constantly mulls on and tries to draw coherently together. Hacking gives her that constant last step of safety, that last barrier between herself and her enemy, and she can always pull the plug. She tries to work through the murder, to bury herself in her ceaseless, dogged task of drawing whatever information she can out of the humming digital hive that is Gentek-Blackwatch’s integrated network, but with the worst possible timing, the field report from that patrol flashes to the top of one of her screens. It has been flagged by one of her filters but Dana is so shocked she doesn’t process why, just opens in. The woman’s death is nothing but a footnote:
ONE (1) INFECTED REMOVED FROM YELLOW ZONE.
BODY SENT FOR POSTMORTEM AND DISPOSAL.
She closes the report file. She saves her notes. She leaves her searches filtering the endless streams of data she’s sapped from the systems through a million tiny holes. Pausing briefly, she checks the hodge-podge radar she’d constructed, tracking signals from the radios of Blackwatch personnel, but there was nothing close enough she needed to worry about. She’d had enough.
----
Alex comes looking when there's been almost three days of radio silence.
One day isn't unusual, two without so much as a peep to touch base, and he's concerned. Worried, even. He rings the buzzer in the foyer but nobody answers. He goes up anyway, comes in the fire escape stairs. They're never locked.
He knocks - he's finally learned, though sometimes he doesn't because the reactionary tiff afterwards is comforting and familiar, even if he's only going through the motions of someone else's life, they both don't mind - but no reply. There's a moment where he's really worried, not quite scared but the dull buzz of alarm is starting to build as he steps into the quiet, darkened apartment. The curtains are drawn, the only light is from the computers – screensavers on, untouched from how she left them days ago.
"Dana?" He calls softly, voice at odds with the predatory scan of the room, searching for anything out of order, any sign of disturbance, any scent of diesel exhaust, blood, faint body odor mixed with the sharp kick of medical bleach- the give-aways of Blackwatch grunts.
For a moment, there's nothing. Then - a quiet snuffle from the bedroom. He's across the apartment in a heartbeat, stepping into the tiny room - barely big enough for the bed and a set of drawers - ready for anything except what he finds: Dana, curled into a tight ball under a tangle of covers.
"Dana?"
"... Hey." The young woman replies, voice raw.
"What's wrong? Are you hurt?" Alex can't see or smell any hint of injury, somewhere in the mess of his mind a part of him is starting to scream in terror that she's finally been infected, but he ignores it like he ignores so much of the noise in his head.
"No, no, I'm … fine... Well... Not really!" Dana gives a harsh laugh, voice quivering.
Alex takes a seat on the edge of the bed. Dana shifts away from him, almost a flinch, which hurts, coming from her. "What happened?"
"Nothing, don't worry," She grumbles, "It's stupid."
"I haven't heard from you in three days, so it's definitely something," He says firmly.
Tense silence reigns, each of them as stubborn as the other. Dana can feel Alex's gaze even turned away as she is, the cold pressure bordering unsettling, her body picking up on what her brain knew but put aside; alone in a dark room with something puppetting the figure of her brother too well but not well enough to hide the unsettling edge to its movements, like how goddamned quiet it was while it sat there, waiting for her to reveal her weaknesses.
"Alright," She says at length, letting out a huge sigh and rolling over. She casts a sidelong glance at Alex, sees his head cocked to one side so she can see a single pale grey eye watching her, still waiting.
"I went shopping," She starts, stopping almost immediately when she sees Alex go to say something, cutting him off with a growled "Save it! I just really needed to stretch my legs, I'd had a shit few days getting nowhere with this particular trawl, and I just... Really fucking wanted some of those spiced cookies, you know, the little round ones with the sugar coating - I think they're German? I don't know..."
"Pfeffernüsse."Alex says without missing a beat - he does know, parts of him anyway.
Dana shoots him another look but continues, “Well I could only think of one place close enough to get it, this tiny little shop up towards Harlem.”
“You went to Harlem?” Alex exclaims with the faintest growled reprimand. The whole area had been lost to a massive hive, despite the close proximity to a Blackwatch base on the North-West of Central Park.
“No, you idiot, I’m not that fucking stupid!” Familiar vitriol lends strength to Dana’s voice, “I said towards Harlem, use your fucking ears!”
“Okay, okay!” The routine of a sibling spat – age old, blows traded more for the sake of it then to actually hurt – seems to relax them both.
“I was just down the street and there were Blackwatch patrols everywhere,” Dana turns slightly more towards him, lets him lean back closer, “There was this woman- Christ, she can’t have been much older then me – and she had hayfever or something, right? Or the fucking flu, I don’t know - some Blackwatch thugs just – just… God!”
She can’t finish her sentence, her voice cracks and she bites her lip to hold back a sob. Alex, for once, holds back the myriad of quips that spring readily to mind. He can feel Dana tremoring, panicked shudders, can hear the hiss of her breath as she tries not to break down. More than one part of him wants to reach out, draw her close, hold her and let her cry until she has nothing left – but he doesn’t move, just sits, stone still, on the end of the bed, unsure and unwilling to move in case it panics her more.
“I'm not naive!" Dana spits suddenly, eyes welling with hot, angry tears. "It just... God, it really got to me.”
“What did they do?” Alex asks softly, almost dangerously quiet.
Dana rubs a hand over her face, curls tighter again. When she replies, it’s soft enough that Alex alone would be the only one to hear it, “They shot her. They killed her, right there. In the alley like some thug. For sneezing! Those bastards!”
Alex’s face distorts with disgust – for all his personal monstrosity, Blackwatch were unmatched for their brutality. Dana goes quiet again, withdrawing back into the memory of the event.
Alex stands, shocking her. He disappears out the door before she can ask what he’s doing, and for a moment she thinks he’s left, feels a bitter anger well – abandoned again, how dare you, chickenshit – but hears him in the kitchenette, then the clunk of plumbing. He comes back, glass of water offered in silent appeasement.
Her anger deflates instantly to tired shock, and she accepts it wordlessly, sitting up.
“When is the last time you ate anything?” He asks, arms folded, appraising her like so many times before. He’d always looked out for her – but this isn’t her brother, the ruse is too seamless, too well practiced, too easy, but she forces herself to ignore it, to play into the attempt.
“I don’t know – yesterday, I think? What time is it?” Her phone is dead, stuffed inside her pillow.
“Nearly eight in the evening.” Alex states with a hint of derision, turning on his heel again. He’s gone for a few minutes but Dana doesn’t really keep track of it. When he returns he’s carrying a plate of buttered toast and it’s the best thing she’s smelled in days.
“Eat.” He instructs as only a sibling – or someone with the life experience of one – can.
Dana’s too tired to offer any resistance, trades the empty glass for the plate. Alex retreats to the kitchen – he watches her too keenly when she eats, like the spectacle is entirely novel, and too often both their thoughts stray towards his more unconventional dietary habits, something Dana has established as a taboo.
Instead, he rifles about the mess of her desk until he finds the battered wallet, stuffed with different cards, all with different names, each a different murmur in his mind. He takes whichever his fingers touch first and pockets it, before going back to make sure Dana has eaten.
The plate is empty, on the end of the bed, and Dana is laying on her back with an arm draped over her face – but Alex can tell, just by her breathing, she’s still awake.
He picks up a discarded cushion and tosses it – very gently – at her head.
“Hey!” She says, peering at him from under her spiky fringe, and her stomach twists seeing him flash a lopsided grin – all at once so reassuringly familiar and terrifyingly alien.
“Try and get some sleep. Some proper sleep.” He says.
“Fine.” She grumbles, but her exhaustion is dragging her back towards slumber anyway.
“Good. I’ll be back.” Then he does leave. Dana doesn’t hear exactly how, but she knows the feeling of the empty apartment all too well.
She tries to put the warring reactions inside her aside and sleep. One part of her misses him keenly already, as it did every time he left, another is relieved that creeping feeling of unease has abated. It’s not as bad as it used to be – she used to break out in a cold sweat when he’d lean over her shoulder to point something on a screen out, her chest would tighten as he stood behind her, too close and too quiet, not speaking, not even breathing, just listening, watching, waiting – but its still noticeable. She tells herself she can trust him, that she has to trust him, tries to convince herself that he would never do anything, but she doesn’t do a great job.
Still, slowly, Alex’s odd presence was becoming less unsettling, and almost reassuring. If he was there, she told herself again and again, then there was nothing else to be afraid of. Not of losing the only family she had left, in whatever for that might be, not of being stuck in a warzone without a hope, not of not knowing where her enemies were. After all, he was the most dangerous thing – according to Blackwatch, according to the news, according to hushed conversations in the streets – on the whole damn island. And if the biggest threat to her was right where she could see it, what else need she be afraid of?
Another less pained sigh escapes her, followed shortly, at last, by sleep.
----
Alex travels disguised, acting as innocuous as possible, coursing a winding trail through the city he knows is clear of patrols and check stations with detectors.
He finds the shop – passes the alleyway that stinks of medical disinfectant now the Blackwatch clean-up crews have finished with it – and once he finds the cookies, he clears the shelf of every packet of it holds. He pays in full on the card, punching in the purchase sequence someone else had committed to muscle memory without so much as pausing to think about it. The store owner doesn’t bat an eyelid – after all that’s going on, someone with a serious craving for pfeffernüsse is nothing she cares to be bothered about.
Two plastic bags filled with cookies in hand, Alex heads back to the apartment.
----
Alex knocks again, and again, there’s no reply, but this time he’s not worried. Hopefully that means that Dana was finally asleep.
He brushes the mouse of the computer as he swoops by, waking the screen. He deposits the bags on what uncluttered space he can find on the kitchen counter, then goes back to the desks to read. He doesn’t touch anything, doesn’t move anything from how she’s left it, just scans the notes. Her last entry is a short report of any search findings, and then a hasty note about a certain Sergeant Nielson and a patrol number. His mind is instantly alight with information – but he’ll deal with that later.
For the moment, there’s nowhere else he needs to be, no monsters of either kind he needs to be hunting; he always makes sure he’s sated before he sees Dana, some part of him fearful that she could always tell, as if his ruse of humanity weakens and lets show more of the creature underneath.
Thusly, he turns his attention to the kitchenette – it’s a mess, not unusual, but it will give him something to do.
He pulls the door to the bedroom almost shut, leaving it open a sliver more for Dana then for himself. He can hear someone hacking their lungs up three floors down – guttural, choking, but not infected, he knows pulmonary emphysema when he hears it - so he has no problem keeping an ear on her with two sheets of plywood between them.
The task is done all too soon, dishes washed and dried, stowed where they belong, benches wiped. He unpacks the pfeffernüsse and leaves them stacked in one corner of the bench where they won’t be missed.
Alex saunters back over to the desks to check the radar – still quiet, patrols moving in their neat little circuits. There’s not even a foray into a hive.
He briefly considers leaving, going to find some trouble to stir up, but he wants – he needs – to stay. Whatever Dana is to him, she matters – Dana, who hadn’t turned on him even when he discovered he was but a sick parody of her brother, who still hits him on the arm when he says something stupid even if she’s just read the damage report from his latest tiff with Blackwatch and knows full well he’s killed someone for less. She knows, and she still leaves the bathroom window unlocked for him, still steers him out of countless Blackwatch traps when she could easily lead him to slaughter. Whatever he’s done to earn this, Alex thinks, he’s not going to waste it.
The clock on the wall tells him Dana has only been asleep for three hours – she’s going to need more then that. So, Alex stands by the door to her room, leaning back against the wall, arms folded across his chest, and fixes his gaze arbitrarily somewhere on the ground a few feet in front of him. He tries to force the rushing in his mind to quiet, to be still. He never rests – he knows he doesn’t need to, just as much as he knows he couldn’t even if he did – but he’s trying to learn how to at least pause.
He takes a few deep, measured breaths – not that he needs that either – tries to ignore the incessant roaring of everything in his mind until it becomes white noise.
It works, for a few blissful moments, but the tide turns and the murmur warps into screaming feedback of too much, too loud, Jesus Christ, no, no, NO!
Alex flinches, arms rippling and flashing into claws, figure bristling with reactionary tendrils.
A low growl rumbles from him as he shakes like a dog just out of water, and he resumes a more normal façade. That was enough of that.
He glances at the clock again- now was as good a time as any.
He steps into the kitchen, taking one of the packets of cookies off the bench and heading into the room. He pauses at the door.
For a moment, Dana seems untroubled, almost normal. Not for the first time, he thinks on how much easier she might have it if he had never remembered – but remembered isn’t the right word, he’d imprinted – but moves swiftly past it. He can’t undo that.
Dana feels someone put a hand on her arm and flinches violently, panicking until she processes the familiar, gruff “Hey.”
Alex sees her jolt and immediately regrets touching her – he’d messed up, God, he thought of all the people he would know how to approach, but it wasn’t ever that easy, they could all tell, one way or another – and he rocks back on his heels, puts a bit more distance between them.
Dana blinks owlishly at him. “Alex? What?” She mutters blearily.
A soft smile, almost mischievous, twists his mouth, and he holds up the opened bag so she can see it, shaking it appetizingly. The strong scent of cloves and cinnamon wake her fully.
“Pfeffernüsse.” He says, and tilts the packet in offering.
Dana’s face breaks into a shocked smile that warms him right to whatever heart he has, and she sits up to take the cookies with an air of disbelieving joy. She holds the bag to her chest, taking a huge breath, savoring the spices and the rare luxury of the treats.
Alex settles back, watching, then freezes as she looks up at him. Even in the murk of the room he can see she’s crying again. What warmth had kindled in him stutters. Suddenly, she’s grabbed his arm, and he goes as limp as a rag-doll, too worried of lashing out, too wary of reacting at all, and lets himself be pulled forwards – and Dana is hugging him fiercely, like she hasn’t in as long as he can remember, like she hasn’t since they both discovered he wasn’t who or what either of them thought he was - and Alex feels… loved.
Not the memory of it, not the loaned sensation from some fragment in his mind, but whatever part of him that crawled out of Penn Station all those long weeks ago is feeling something entirely its own, something it dares to think that it might just have earned.
“Thank you,” Dana says, voice muffled, her head buried into his jacket, uncaring of the unnatural softness, of the faint scent of blood, and of something else that she didn’t want to give a name. She just holds him, and after a moment, she feels the tension in him give way. Alex puts an arm around her – she ignores the feeling of muscles like steel cables moving too fluidly around her, ignores the details of thousands of reports of people who got this close to this creature and how that went for them – and hugs her back with a tenderness he didn’t think himself capable of.
For once, the strength in him doesn’t feel so threatening, Dana thinks, for once, there’s a comfort in having the most dangerous thing she’s ever seen hold her so close, for once, she feels like she can trust Alex – whoever, whatever he is - entirely.
For that brief moment, they are alright.
The moment passes, Dana drops her arm and Alex stands to leave.
“Wait,” She snags the sleeve of his jacket with a hand, freezing him mid-step, “Don’t… Can you stay? Please?”
Alex is taken back – he tries to keep his visits short, both to decrease the likelihood of someone finding the safehouse, and because he knows she’s unsettled by him, the constant reminder of the ruse neither of them are quite ready to give up. To complicate things, he’s been off the streets for almost a full twenty-four hours. Blackwatch could be having a party out there and he wouldn’t know.
“I…” He starts, uncertain.
Dana’s hand drops from his sleeve. “No, you’re right, it’s stupid.” She mutters.
Bitter anger twists in him, directed internally. You heartless bastard.
“Give me two hours, then I’ll be back.” He says.
Dana looks up. “What, really?”
“Two hours,” Alex swears, “I promise.”
He means it.