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Artwork courtesy of Valjean & |
By Valjean
ARCHIVE: No
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Artwork courtesy of Valjean & |
*****
“Dean! Dean! Wake up!”
Sam shook his brother’s shoulder hard, trying to rouse him. They’d pulled off the road at a rest stop shortly after midnight to get a little sleep. Now, it was almost dawn and he couldn’t get Dean to fully wake up.
“Ow,” the X5 muttered, cradling his head in his hands. “Oh, God,” he gasped as he opened his eyes to slits, even the dim light of early morning enough to make the pain of his headache intensify. “I’m gonna be sick,” he choked out the words, barely getting the car door open before vomiting. Falling to his knees, only Sam’s hand under his shoulder kept him from going face down in the dirt as he retched.
“Dean, you’re in trouble,” Sam said firmly, trying to not let his fear show in his voice. “We’re going to Seattle where someone can help you.”
“No! I won’t go crawlin’ back to her!” Dean spat as he wiped his mouth on the back of a shaking hand.
“Max doesn’t have anything to do with this!” Sam yelled. “We’re going there to find a doctor!”
“No!”
“Do you want to die then!” Sam said, truly angry now at his brother’s pigheadedness. “Is that the plan? To leave me alone to find Dad? Did I save you from that bitch back there just to lose you now? You said we were a team ... that we were in this together. Now you’re gonna desert me? You’re the responsible one, Dean, the one who never gives up. You’re the one who always keeps me goin’. You can’t bail on me now, damn it!”
Dean relaxed back into his brother’s arms, the shaking so bad now he couldn’t even stand. Then his eyes rose to meet Sam’s, truth shining in bloodshot pools of green and gold. “All right,” he said hoarsely. A difficult swallow as bile burned his throat ... “There’s a doc in Seattle ... Sam Carr. If anyone can help me it’s him.”
Sam closed his eyes in a silent prayer of thanks that his stubborn ass brother had at last come to his senses. Then he gave Dean a big hug. “You’re gonna be fine,” he said, burying his face against the material of that grey leather jacket. “We’re gonna get you help and you’re gonna be just fine.”
*****
“It’s my DNA, isn’t it?” 494 said. “Max and me ... we always used to joke that our bar codes came with an expiration date ... that we’d probably never make it to the ripe old age of thirty.” Naked except for a paper sheet covering his loins, the X5 looked up at Dr. Carr from where he lay reclining on the examining table, hazel-green eyes expectant yet resigned. “Just tell me how long I’ve got, doc,” he added, his tone more sober this time.
“Don’t talk like that,” Sam said sharply. “You’re not dying. Is he, Dr. Carr?”
Dr. Sam Carr -- mid-forties, balding, and slightly more rotund than the last time the X5 had seen him -- was a man who’d been treating transgenics for almost half a dozen years now, first as a favor to his friend Logan Cale, then later because they were not only fascinating subjects for medical study, but patients badly in need of expert, very specialized medical care. He knew how to run the DNA tests that were required in order to diagnose the supersoldiers, and he also was no longer nonplussed by the odd feline (and other animal) chromosomes that lit up the results of those tests like a Christmas tree. The boy on the table in front of him now shouldn’t even be alive, let alone have superhuman capabilities. Yet ... Alec ... Dean ... X5-494 ... was not only alive, but had up until now been living a very full, active life. However, unfortunately, all of that was about to change.
“Yes and no,” he finally said in reply to the younger man’s question.
“Meaning?” Dean said, one eyebrow rising.
The doctor reached out and took hold of the young transgenic’s trembling right hand, holding it out in front of the boy so they could all see just how bad the spasms were. “You thought this was caused by your serotonin deficiency?” he said.
“That notion took the front seat, yeah,” Dean said. “Why? You mean it’s not?”
“What’s wrong with you has nothing to do with your brain chemistry, at least not directly. You could take all the tryptophan in the world and it wouldn’t help you.”
“So,” Dean said, growing impatient. “What is it? Somethin’ else in my body breakin’ down?”
“Your X5 neurological components are unraveling on the molecular level,” Dr. Carr said quietly. “The part of your feline DNA that controls your nervous system is failing, the neural sheaths of your cells disintegrating. In a way, it’s like multiplesclerosis or Lou Gherig’s Disease.”
“How bad will it get?” Dean asked, but already knowing the answer.
“At this rate, in another few days you won’t be able to walk. In two weeks you’ll probably be blind and deaf, and in a month you’ll only be able to breathe with the help of a respirator. I’m sorry, Alec, but you’re dying, and frankly, I don’t see any way to help you.” He held out a chart. “Here’s your DNA analysis showing the feline DNA failing. We always thought that at least some of you X5s were stable, but I guess the human/cat hybrid factor just wasn’t bonded strongly enough to last over a lifetime, even in the best of you.”
“Can he be helped?” Sam’s voice said in the silence following the doctor’s grim diagnosis.
Sam Carr shrugged. “Manticore might be able to help him ... Davis Stendahl’s people. Lydecker certainly doesn’t have the medical resources any more.”
“Stendahl would more’n likely just cut me up for body parts,” Dean said. “No help there.” He glanced up at his brother. “Better that I’d just ended it back at the Darby Estate, right Sammy?”
“Don’t talk like that,” Sam snapped. “There’s got to be a way to fix this.”
“Just wasn’t meant to be, baby brother,” Dean said, putting arms behind his head as he lay back on the pillow of the examining table. His eyes shifted to the doctor. “I assume there’s somethin’ you can give me that’ll get it over with quick?”
“Euthanasia’s illegal,” Dr. Carr said, his tone carefully flat.
“So are transgenics,” Dean shot right back. “I’m not considered human, doc. So -- as they say -- no point, no foul. Just gimme enough morphine to get it over with.”
Sam looked as if he was about to cry. “Not now,” he said huskily. “Not yet. I’m not ready to lose you.”
A nurse poked her head into the room. “Here’s the result of that other blood work you ordered,” she said.
“What other blood work?” Dean asked.
“You were running a slight fever,” Dr. Carr explained, so I did a check for viruses.
“My body temp’s three degrees higher than an Ordinary’s,” Dean reminded him.
“I know,” Carr said dryly. “But yours was running almost 104.” Adjusting his spectacles, the medic looked through the numbers on the chart -- then suddenly his brown eyes widened. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he said quietly.
“What?” Sam and Dean said at the same time.
He looked up. “Your feline DNA isn’t breaking down. It’s being attacked -- by a retrovirus from the looks of this analysis.”
“What kind of virus?” Sam said. “Where did he catch it?”
“Something very specific,” Carr replied, his eyes still round with wonder. “Boutique even.” He looked sharply at his patient. “You didn’t just ‘catch’ this thing, Alec. It was done on purpose. Someone infected you with a man made, genetically manipulated virus that was designed specifically to target your X5 feline DNA. It would be totally harmless to normal humans,” his eyes went to Sam, “but appears to be one hundred percent lethal to your kind.”
“When could I have caught it?” Dean wondered. “How long has it been workin’ on me.”
“From the rate of deterioration in your DNA strands I’d say you contracted the infection maybe three weeks ago,” Carr guessed.
Sam looked sharply at his brother.
“Have you been around anyone from Manticore in the past month?” the doctor asked. “Someone who you had close contact with who could have infected you? This thing isn’t passed through the air. It would have taken intimacy or an injection.”
“You mean like in sex?” Sam said, staring accusingly at Dean.
“Unprotected?” the doctor said. “Yes. That would probably be enough to pass the retrovirus from one X5 to another.”
“How about from an X6 to an X5?” Dean said, knowing he needed to come clean about his encounter with X6-472 because, in all likelihood, that was who had given this nasty little bug to him.
Carr shrugged again. “I don’t see why not.”
“You slept with her?” Sam spat. “You had sex with that ... that ... child?”
Dean looked away. “Yeah, I jumped her. It was just one of those spur of the moment things.”
“And now, because you can’t keep your pants zipped, you’re dying!” Sam practically shouted. “Geez, Dean, what’s wrong with you?”
“Hey!” his brother shot right back. “You’re the good little boy. I’m the ass hole. Remember?”
“Damn it Dean ...” Words were failing the younger Winchester brother.
“There is some good news in all of this,” the doctor said levelly.
Two pairs of eyes riveted on him.
“Since we now know the cause of the deterioration isn’t genetic, but caused by an outside agent, a blood transfusion would greatly slow things down ... give Alec more time. Unfortunately, though, there aren’t many X5s left in Terminal City.”
It sank in.
“No!” Dean said.
“She’ll do it for you,” Sam said. “You know she will. She still loves you, Dean, in spite of what she did. She has to. You’re the father of her son.”
“I won’t ask that bitch for anything!”
“You have to! You need that transfusion so we can buy enough time to get to this Stendahl guy or whoever it was that probably sent the girl to infect you.”
“I’d rather shoot myself in the head.”
“That’s running away!”
“I prefer to call it ‘bowing out gracefully’,” Dean snapped.
“I call it the act of a complete coward,” Sam said grimly, bending over and getting in his brother’s face. Then he stood up and started toward the door.
“Sam!” Dean shouted, starting to get up off the exam table but not quite able to make his legs obey him. “Don’t you dare!”
“Keep him here,” Sam ordered Dr. Carr, his voice more authoritative than Dean had ever heard it. His eyes went to the bottles of drugs in a cabinet. “Any way you have to. I’ll be back as soon as I can with help.”
“Sam!” Dean yelled after him, his voice carrying down the hallway even after the door had closed. “I swear if you-- I’ll kill you if you bring her here! And I’ll kill her too!”
Covering his ears, Sam Winchester ignored the anguished plea, instead concentrating on the mission in front of him that would hopefully save Dean’s life.
*****
Max opened the door of Logan’s apartment on the first knock, and her eyes widened with fear -- not that Sam blamed her.
“He can’t have him,” she said fiercely. “He can’t have Brac. Tell Alec to go away or I’ll kill him.”
“Now that’s a nice way to talk about your child’s father,” Sam said evenly. “Your Alec’s not here for his son. He’s in town because he’s sick. Real sick. And he needs a blood transfusion from an X5.” Sam glanced behind Max into the empty apartment behind her. “And apparently -- seein’ as how most of the X5s are either dead, hiding, or imprisoned -- you’re it.” He leaned on the door frame. “What about it, Max? Do you still care enough about my brother to save his life?”
“What’s wrong with him?” the dark-haired girl said cautiously. “Did he get shot?”
“Well, yeah,” Sam admitted. “That too. But that’s not why he needs your blood. It seems this Major Stendahl or some other government baddie infected Dean with a retrovirus that’s eating away at his kitty-cat DNA. Dr. Carr says he’ll be dead in a month at the rate he’s goin’ downhill, and it won’t be a pretty sight. In the meantime, it’s all I can do to keep Dean from puttin’ a gun to his head and pullin’ the trigger. The doc had to sedate him just so I could come here and ask for your help. It is me askin’, by the way -- not Dean. He’d rather eat a bullet than ask you for anything right now.” Sam shrugged. “But I guess I’m selfish. I don’t wanna lose someone I love just because he’s bein’ an ass about this.”
“Of course you don’t,” Max said softly -- a surprisingly quiet reply to what had essentially been a rant, Sam thought. “I know how it feels to have someone you love in danger of dying.” She reached for her coat. “And I’ve also ‘been there, done that, and bought the t-shirt’ where Manticore’s retroviruses are concerned. Take me to him.”
Sam’s hand on her arm brought her to a halt. “Why are you so eager to do this, Max, when a minute ago you were threatenin’ to kill the guy?”
“494’s family,” she said simply. “And right now he’s not a threat to me. Besides, the big jerk may be trouble, but he’s also addictive, and I got hooked on my 'Smart-Alec' a long time ago.”
“But he will be in the future,” Sam felt obligated to point out. “Trouble for you. When he’s well, someday he’ll come for Brac.”
“I know,” Max said quietly. “And when that time comes I’ll take his ass down if I have to. But right now ... if Stendahl did this to Alec he could just as easily do it to me, Brac, or any of my brothers or sisters. Best thing to do is to save him. That way the bastard will know he can’t fuck with us.”
There was logic in her reasoning. Sam had to give her that. He held the door open for her as she exited the apartment.
*****
“I’m going to keep him sedated until the transfusion has taken full affect,” Dr. Carr said as he checked the tube running between X5-452 and X5-494. “If you could have heard him ...” He sighed. “Against my better judgment, I shot him up with Halidol. He’ll be out until at least tomorrow.”
“Thanks, doc,” Sam said from where he was seated at his brother’s bedside.
Dean stirred in his drugged sleep, turning his head on the pillow and muttering a single word -- “Max” -- somehow aware of her presence.
She looked down at her former mate, brown eyes sad.
“Havin’ second thought about what you did to him?” Sam asked.
“I hate myself for that night,” Max said softly. “I never meant for him to see me--”
“Cheatin’ on him with your ex?” Sam finished for her. “He’d have found out sooner or later. You know he would have. Dean’s good at sensing things like that ... betrayal ...”
Max winced. “Maybe this,” she held up her arm that still had a needle and tube in it, “will make up for things a little bit.” She looked at Sam. “I’ve called Lydecker. Hopefully he’ll know of a Manticore scientist who can make an antigen for this retrovirus.”
“Dean doesn’t think Lydecker has the resources,” Sam said.
Max looked away, her dark hair falling forward and hiding her expression. “Probably not,” she said softly. “But we have to try.” A glance up. “I don’t want to lose him either, Sam. I know you don’t believe me, but Alec and me ... we go back too far and have way too much history. He’s the best partner I’ve ever had, in more ways than one. If it weren’t for ... circumstances ... we might even have lived that ‘happily ever after’ people talk about. But now--”
“It’s all fucked up,” Sam said. “And the best you and I can hope for is that the he doesn’t die.”
Max just nodded.
*****
Dean opened bleary eyes, and raised a hand to his face. Judging from the amount of stubble on his chin, he guessed he’d been out about two days ... maybe more. However, that hand was steady ... not trembling.
“You’re better,” Sam said, smiling at him from where he was seated at his bedside. “For now.”
“For now?” his brother mumbled, his mouth too dry to talk.
“Dean--”
“What?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Sorry ‘bout what? For savin’ my ass in spite of myself?”
“No,” Sam said, his eyes filling with tears. “For what’s about to happen. There’s no other way, and I can’t just let you die. I just ... can’t.”
A knife cold chill shot through Dean’s chest even as the room door opened. Standing in the opening was an old familiar face -- Donald Lydecker -- but it wasn’t the colonel that made 494’s heart pound with fear.
“Hello, 494,” Major Davis Stendahl said as he entered the room with an escort of two of his pet X5s at his side. “Welcome home.”
THE END
