Alec 4 Tali

“Four dollars?! You’re joking right? For a bus ticket!?!” Alec exclaimed, scandalised. The overweight Hispanic driver nodded with a joyful glint in his eyes. It was bad enough that his bike ad been impounded, now he was being robbed blind for a stinky disease infested mode of transport. He shelled out the money, giving the driver the filthy look he reserved only for Ames White. At least he was guaranteed a seat. The clapped out piece of junk was almost empty, save for two gossiping old biddies to the right near the back; and a girl with purple hair staring out the window to his left near the middle of the bus. He took his chances and sat opposite the amethyst-haired girl. He felt oddly drawn to her, as if he knew her from some where. He looked her up and down studying her in detail. Her clothes were that of a deadbeat student. Baggy jeans two sizes too big held up by a black leather belt, a big Manticore-style jacket in kaki green, a pink sleeveless tee, and flat soled Nike trainers that were more than a little bit battered. Around her neck she wore a feather dangling off of the peace symbol and a comma shaped chunk of crystal. Her bag also looked a lot like it was Manticore issue, but with a million pins with slogans like “Life's a beach and then you fry”. She was tiny, about 4 foot 7”, a size twelve at the most, about sixteen or seventeen Alec guessed. She sat curled up on her seat with her feet folded beside her, her head resting on the window. The angle of her head had caused her hip length straight hair to fall so it was covering her face. She was so familiar.

Alec kept watching her with the feeling of deja vu growing in the pit of his stomach. A memory was trying to break through his subconscious but it was as if it had gotten stuck at a checkpoint in his head. Caught without the right clearance. She shifted in her seat and Alec realised he’d been staring intensely at this girl. His eyes snapped forward but he continued to concentrate, to try to remember if he knew her or not. He was concentrating so hard he didn’t notice her move her hair to look at him. She had felt his eyes on her for the last ten minutes at least. Peering round he hair she looked at the mystery man and did a double take. Her heart ached at the sight of him. Finally, she had found him, found her past. He didn’t notice her get up, cross the aisle and sit down gently beside him.

“Hello, 494” she whispered as she lent close to him, making Alec jump a mile. His heart skipped a beat as he registered her calling him by his designation. Damn! She was staring up at the front of the bus, watching the road ahead, and her hair was AGAIN hiding her face. He wasn’t fully sure he hadn't imagined what she had said. Her olive skinned hands move up to her hair, a hair band around her left wrist. She turned away from him as she gathered her hair into a loose bun at the nape of her neck, Alec just catching the briefest view of a barcode. Now he knew he hadn’t imagined it, she knew him by number. She turned slowly to face him.

Green eyes the green of traffic lights shone back at him, ruby red lips curved lusciously at him. She always had reminded him of strawberries and cream, with her porcelain complexion and faint blush of rose along her cheekbones. He had kissed those lips, watched as those innocent eyes had danced when she laughed. Alec gasped as the memories broke through the checkpoint....

Kissing her....... drill sergeant shouting......... holding her..........training.......................playing with her hair as she lay naked under a sheet beside his naked form.....................medicals.............laughing with her, her electric green eyes dancing................interrogations......................making love to her................being told X6EU 332960073452 was his breeding partner.......................meeting her...............falling in love with her...............her crying............him being dragged away.....................torture..............psycho axis.......... “love is weakness. She is an object to be impregnated, nothing more”........................returning to her...............still loving her...............her turning away...............her looking at him with a scared/guilty look.............him wanting to be in her arms again............her arguing with him........them physically fighting each other in her cell.......her being moved...him being assigned to Max. They had no order but still made sense to him. Just like her.

He continued to stare at her and she at him. She had changed so much since he had last kissed those lips. She was more solemn, her gaze more serious. Her mouth had lost its smile, her eyes had lost their sparkle. They had a haunted look about them now, something lethal that had never been there now glinted back at him. She was the killer they had always wanted her to be on the surface, but he saw what no one else ever saw: the soul he had once been a part of. Love that he had never stopped feeling for her now reared its ugly head. “Love hurts” it said to him. Alec knew that but he had loved her more than anyone he had never known. Anger was starting to slip into the love he felt.
“I know you. What are you calling yourself now?” Alec asked, not wanting to blow her cover.

“Tali” She replied. “You?” She asked

“Alec” he replied. “Your successor thought I was a smart Alec. How’d you get Tali?” he asked

“It’s short for Ctalia. I made it up. I thought it was pretty” she sounded so small, like Manticore had given her one too many beatings and finally broken her soul. She looked so sad, as if she wanted to say something but didn’t know how. “I’m so sorry! If I hadn’t have told Kali and the other girls about us you never would have been taken away!” Tali cried, as if she had been bottling it up since the fight.

Anger and guilt rose in Alec, anger taking him over. “Sorry? That's it, that's all you have to say? Sorry? You really think that sorry even comes close to covering it? They really did a mind job on you didn’t they? Sorry isn’t even close to what I need or want from you. If I never see you again, it’ll be too soon!” Alec spat at her. He glared at her with growing contempt for the Judas. Memories still stung and scars never faded. “Sorry” was never going to cover it.

Her crumpled trodden look faded. Anger filled her and burst out. “Yeah, well, you were never the saint either! I made one mistake, excuse me for being the tiniest bit flawed! I forgot you have no emotions and that you’re the biggest jerk in the world!!! I can’t believe that I ever invested any emotions in you! I should have just got some, got gone because you should have been castrated at birth!” Tali yelled, nose to nose with him.

Alec snapped and threw a right hook. Bad idea. Within seconds they were on their feet moving like the killers they were, fists of pure rage flying in all directions. The two old women at the back screamed in terror as they witnessed, hands over their eyes, two transgenics trying to tear each other apart. The driver, amazed at the sheer speed of this superhuman lovers tiff, slammed on the brakes and turned right round in his seat to watch the whirling dervish. Ducking a sharp left from Alec, Tali came up under him, directing a well aimed right foot from below. Alec doubled over, clutching his privates with both hands, groaning in agony. It hurt so much he could hardly breathe. She bent down and lifted him just far enough off of the floor to throw him through the closed window, jumping out gracefully after him. The driver stamped his foot in disappointment at having missed nearly the entire thing.

On the street, two blocks outside the premises of Jam Pony delivery service, Tali advanced on a cowering Alec. He now truly understood the phrases “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned” and “Never play with fire”. He wondered if any one would miss him after Tali murdered him. For the first time in his entire life Alec truly felt guilty. His big mouth had turned someone so innocent into a killer. If only he had kept his mouth shut she wouldn’t have ended up in Psyops. He closed his eyes as she approached and waited. But death never came.

There he was, Joshua, a true hero, standing there holding Tali. Granted, she was now trying to kill Joshua to get at Alec but Joshua stood fast. She was screaming in anger, tears running down her beautiful face as she broke down. Guilt overtook Alec, making him wish she had killed him. He had reduced her to an angry, crying wreck. How could he ever look her in the face again after what he had done. Alec climbed to his feet. He slowly inched closer to her until he was within a hairs breadth. He leaned towards her ear. “I’m so sorry” he whispered.

Her crying stopped. She looked at him with utter disgust. What sick game was he playing now? Hadn't convincing her he loved her and then telling her he hated her enough? What more could he do?

“What is this? Haven’t you done enough? What, are you going to tell me you love me again so I care about you, only to have you tell me you hate me?” Tali yelled at him.

“I thought you were angry that I got you sent off to Psyops for six months. I thought you stopped loving me. You could hardly look at me. I never stopped loving you. I just wanted you to hold me again, but you wouldn’t come near me. Then we had the fight and you got moved. I thought you were happier without me” he said softly.

She had stopped struggling at Joshua. She looked exhausted. Joshua was practically holding her up. Her hand started to twitch. The twitch got worse, her hand started to shake.

“I was never angry at you, I was angry at them. I thought you were angry at me for letting him take them away” She gushed. The shaking was getting worse. Joshua’s hands were wet and slippery. She was starting to slip.

“Alec?!” Joshua started.

“Not now Josh!” Alec snapped. “What are you talking about? What got taken away?!” Alec asked, confused.

“I was pregnant, they didn’t know until they started doing the Psyops. They took them away. They didn’t know, I didn’t know. Twins, a boy and a girl. Lydecker kept them a secret from Renfro. He took them home with him. I’m sorry, Alec, I.........”Tali trailed off as she lost consciousness.

“Tali? Tali?!?” Alec started to panic. He couldn’t loose her again, not now that he had found her again.

“ALEC!” Joshua yelled in Alec’s ear.

“What?!” Alec hollered back, jerking his head away.

“I can’t hold her. She’s all wet” Joshua said as he dropped her. Alec caught her head as she landed. Her pink tee was soaked crimson. Alec yanked up her tee to reveal a gaping open gash, about six inches long , where her appendix would be. The stitches had ripped through layers of tissue, a main artery was spurting blood up at Alec.

“NO!” Alec yelled as he pulled off his black tee to stop the bleed. “Josh, go get help, go get Max!” Alec commanded, putting pressure on the wound with his tee. As Joshua disappeared into the crowd, Tali swam back into consciousness. She smiled up at him, the one thing not fuzzy to her.

“I love you” she said faintly, his head snapping to attention. He smiled down at her.

“I love you” he said, tears coming to his eyes. Her leg started twitching but Alec hadn’t noticed, his whole attention on Tali.

“I called them Nicolas Ben and Maria Jondy, so they could forget their transgenic roots when they wanted to. And so I never forgot my brother and sister. Don’t let them forget me” she pleaded. Her other arm and leg had started to twitch

“I won’t, I promise but you’ll be around. Don’t say your goodbyes yet. You’re not gonna die, I won’t let you” he joked, tears running down his face. She was slipping. He could feel her slipping away from him. He couldn’t let her, he couldn’t loose her again.

“AAHH!” Tali cried in pain as the seizure took over her. It shook her small frame, tearing the gaping wound further. Blood poured more persistently through the perforation in her abdomen. Alec’s tee was already soaked through so Tali’s blood poured over his hands.

Max rushed through the crowds, Joshua hot on her heels. Without a word she rushed to her sisters side, pressing her fingers to Tali’s convulsing jugular, her face screwed up in concentration. Joshua watched from the sidelines.

The seizure stopped. Tali went limp. The bleeding stopped. Alec smiled in triumph and looked over at Max. Max slowly shook her head. Alec released his tee from Tali’s stomach and stood up. He ran as fast as he could, ran away from the lifeless form of his one true love, away from her death.

THREE DAYS LATER

Alec sat atop the Space Needle overlooking the city, the rain hiding his tears. Her body had been moved to the morgue, her post mortem performed by Sam Carr at personal request by Logan. Cause of death had been pronounced as a massive abdominal haemorrhage coupled with severe neurochemical overload because of the seizure. No one had said that it was Alec’s fault except Alec. He hadn’t gone back to work for three days. He hadn’t spoken to anyone since she had died. No one had phoned or knocked at the door, as if there was an invisible barrier keeping the world out. Logan had done an Eyes Only broadcast to tell all transgenics that one of them was dead and the funeral was on Friday.

Alec couldn’t yet say her name. It was too painful. The memories of her kept replaying in his head, cutting deeper and deeper with every replay.

Questions kept playing through his head. Could he have saved her? Was it his fault? Where was she now? Where was Lydecker? How were his children? Why had he kept them a secret from Renfro? Why did he take them home with him?

Alec didn’t know the answers to these questions. Alec didn’t know a lot but he knew some things. He knew he would always love her. He knew would keep his promise. He knew he had to go to the funeral. He knew he had to continue living. He knew he had to have his children.

All this he knew. But tonight, sitting there in the rain, Alec only knew one thing. He missed her and it hurt.

He knew why Max sat up here.