Disclaimer: I don't own Dark Angel

A/N: Huge Logan-shaped snow man thanks to Shywr1ter for the extra shift beta. Of course all remaining mistakes are mine.

Did you ever wonder why Max's nightgown was dry when Hannah stopped for her even though it should have been dripping wet from having fallen into the lake?

xxx

Forest west of Manticore, February 2009

When Max crashes through the lake marking Manticore's outskirts, the ice under her feet suddenly bursting into angry splinters, she doesn't fight or panic. As her initial shock gives way to concentration, she simply lets herself drift under the safe cover that would hide her from the guards… if only she can make it long enough.

Forcing her mind into basic survival mode, she registers how the icy water drains her body warmth, quickly numbing that first wave of dull pain. Just like the colonel had showed them, Max starts counting in the rhythmical, emotionless way of a soldier measuring time, all the while watching the bluish winter sky through her little, cracked window of milky ice. Needing something to hold on to, her eyes fix on the pale, round moon, glowing in calm serenity as if up there her siblings weren't running for their lives.

Finally, after 256 record-breaking seconds, it seems safe to come up, the muffled yells and thudding vibrations of heavy boots long having faded into the gurgling silence of the water. Slowly swimming towards the hole, Max stifles the jolt of horror upon finding that it has already started to close, instead putting all her remaining strength into pushing upwards, into the night.

The light breeze tickling her face after the dark, murky water is reward enough. Only her head sticking out, Max allows herself five deep, well-measured breaths of cuttingly cold, wonderfully clear air while she warily scans her surroundings.

All is clear. No noise, no movement disturbs the unsettling realization that now she is alone, isolated: for the first time in her life has nobody to keep her company. It is a frightening thought that would make her feel hopelessly lonely and abandoned, if only she wasn't so consumed by her urge to get away.

The icy air bites into her wet skin, crushing it brutally, as soon as she carefully hoists herself onto the brittle surface, water running down her legs and dripping from her gown. As Max forces her heavy limbs into an awkward trotting, quickly reaching the relative safety of the trees, she feels how the soaked nightgown stiffens around her into an armor of ice. It's only then, with this harsh reminder of her hostile surroundings, that Max starts to calculate her chances of survival. She won't allow herself to think about not making it – not yet – but the purposeful, single-minded concentration bringing her this far is gone. Alone, and without Zack's guidance, she is robbed of her siblings' help and encouraging smiles that had accompanied her as long as she can remember.

The one thing that keeps her going now, that the initial kick of adrenaline has ebbed, is the thrilling prospect of what is waiting for her on the outside, away from the colonel and his bellowed orders. Out there, somewhere, there would be buildings, a warm place for a brief rest before she would continue her escape. Perhaps she would even find some clothes to replace her own, pants and sweaters of the kind some of the staff wore, warm and soft and different for each person.

Driven by her excitement, Max hurries along, eyes directed ahead and already seeing the beginnings of a better world behind every clearing.

xxxx

If there hadn't been the dark-red stain intruding into her vision she probably would have missed the pale heap of arms and legs in between all the shades of white, unmoving winter wood.

She immediately recognizes the lithe body with its shaven head and bar-coded neck as one of her siblings. For a few seconds though her brain refuses to take in the truth, letting her pretend that this isn't Sammy, her little baby brother, the smallest in their group and the only person to make even Zack smirk.

But there's no denying the truth and realization hits her like a wave of nausea, dizzying her as she leans against a tree, its mossy bark oddly warm under her fingers.

It's their fault, their doing that Sammy is dead.

The escape hadn't been Max's idea but at least it had been her decision to come along, aware of the risks. Sammy hadn't had this luxury. As she sees him lying there, Max remembers the harsh, whispered discussion about taking him along dragging out endlessly. All their arguments had spun around the dilemma of how he wasn't quite up to it – but yet was too small to stay behind and probably wouldn't survive the harassing after their escape. Grimly they'd weighed the pros and cons while he was sitting at their side with his wide, anxious child eyes, ready to follow them into death.

And he did. It is she, the older sister, the one who should have protected him, who is still standing there, alive and sickly guilty for her foolish thrill of triumph only minutes before.

Suddenly the escape is no longer the gloriously twisted fulfillment of all their years of training, but is only yet another way of allowing them to kill more of her siblings.

Ignoring the obvious, Max kneels down to feel for a pulse. Sammy's arm crudely sticks out from under his torso, igniting a rush of bitterness in her towards the soldier who, instead of just immobilizing him, had killed her brother. But his skin is cold and translucent, every sign of life gone from the body that has already become a part of the still, glassy landscape.

It feels like abandoning the most helpless of her siblings, but still, finally, Max turns around to go, knowing, after years of listening to Zack's commands, that he would tell her not to linger and get caught over something that couldn't be changed.

On a sudden impulse though, she hesitates, one hand lingering on the dry tissue of Sammy's gown, not wet at all from the powdery snow. Her other hand fingers the harsh, frozen mess of her own clothes scratching her skin, aware of how it would slow her down and make her even more suspicious to the outside people.

Max knows how wrong it is, but that sickly twisted, alluringly simple thought just sneaks up on her, drilling into her mind with the power of necessity. But she also knows that Sammy would have wanted her to escape even if he didn't make it, that she would have wanted him to do what is needed if the situation was reversed.

She knows that Zack would approve.

Hating herself for caring more about her own survival than his dignity, Max starts to undress her brother with the gentlest touch to put on his gown herself, her treacherously shivering body relaxing immediately into his soft clothing.

Almost deliberately, Max neglects her vigilance, feeling as if she owes it to him to lose herself in this overwhelming sadness she remembers from when they lost Jack and later on Eva. But at least back then she had been among the others, their grief not lessened but at least shared, unlike this empty loneliness that will be a constant in her life from now on.

Finally, she covers his body with her own clothes, then piles up more snow and some loose branches. She hopes it will give him something like peace, untouched by the scientists' greedy hands.

With a last look back at the small, white heap in the underbrush, now looking almost untouched, Max forces herself into running full speed, away from Sammy, away from Manticore.

He would have wanted her to make it, would have wanted her to see the outside with its warm beds and endless food, all the places where there were no men with guns, no doctors with their cold knives and needles.

xxx The End… xxx

… even though I figure this might become a collection of some loose bits from Max's life.