Title: Broken doll

Author: Shanee

Pairing: M/A eventually

Rating: R (difficult themes)

Setting: AU after the escape of 2009.

Disclaimer: No, I don't own DA's characters. So don't sue me; I'm broke.

Summary: In 2009, Max escaped with her unit, but she was recaptured by Lydecker three years later. Back at Manticore, she spent the usual 6 months in re-indoctrination and psy-ops, before being re-assigned to another unit. But not wanting the same mistake happen twice and see her being close to her unit, director Backer made her the living image of a traitor. Despised by the trainers, mocked by the guards and hated by the soldiers, little Maxie is no longer the carefree lively girl she was.

A/N: I know, another story of Max back at Manticore and where Max is a victim, but I can't help it, I had this idea last night, and now I have the urge to write it. Warning, it will be angst, with mention of suicide and rape. I don't want to offend or upset anyone with the subjects. Do not read if you're sensible or underage.

Positive reviews are welcome.

BROKEN DOLL

Encounter with an 09er

It has been seven months since the last time Max had said a word. She noticed speaking was pointless in her case. It wasn't like anybody listened to her; in her case speaking was far worse than being punished for being mute. After all, the trainers repeated all the time that she was a liar, a filthy little liar, and her unit mates were the masters to use her words against her. So she had stopped speaking. She didn't see any improvement, but at least, when she was silent, she concentrated better on going away and forgetting the pain.

Her arm was broken, again. She wasn't even sure it was healed from the last time, but that had never refrained them to beat her before, so why now? She didn't raise her head, she knew better than cross their eyes. So she didn't react, not even a murmur of pain. She felt the pain, but she didn't want to give them that satisfaction.

248, her SIC, put the iron bar he used to hit her down and smirked.

"So, traitor, care to explain how you cheated this morning? You made us look like fools."

Max didn't look like she had heard him, and maybe she didn't. She was to busy thinking about the chances of going to the infirmary conscious. She knew it was only the beginning. She was used to it. So she tried her best to withdraw in her mind, to focus only on the footsteps of the guards in the corridor. It was her lullaby. They wouldn't come for a while. They were perfectly aware of what was happening in the dorm, but they didn't care. They had theirs orders. Do not intervene before the life of the traitor was threatened. Threatened, a nice word with an even nicer definition within these walls. Max remembered waking up after a coma at least three times in the last six months and her heart had stopped four other times. Sometimes she wished they hadn't saved her. But no, she was worth several millions dollars, so they always reanimated her and sent her back in her own world of torture. A traitor couldn't complain.

248 dropped the bar against her back. She could hear her ribs crack.

"Answer me, traitor. How do you succeed to arrive first?"

Yes, how? It was the obstacle course, their favorite game to hurt her. There were ponds to drawn her, cliffs to make her fall, cords to strangle her and barbed wires to make her bleed, and no trainers to look away before the end. But this morning Max had run faster than them and had won the course, with a ten minutes record. The trainer had been so surprised that he had congratulated her before remembering she was the traitor.

Max didn't know the answer. She had just run, because she hadn't been sure she would make it alive if she let them catch her. Her ankle was killing her now, but she didn't care, and somehow she was a bit proud of herself. She had made a record with a broken ankle.

She felt her head violently pulled by her hair, courtesy of 504, her CO. Her eyes were blank as always.

"Answer us, bitch!"

She didn't and the fists fell on her. Let the party begin.

†††††††††††††††††††††††††††††

494 was wandering inside the Wyoming facility, his mind full of displeasing thoughts. He had failed his mission. Of his six-members team, only five had returned alive, and he was the only one able to walk without help. It had supposed to be an easy mission; he shouldn't have lost 767. She was only fourteen, for Pete's sake. But a fourteen X5 was a soldier first, and soldiers die on battlefield. He should have saved her.

He knew he wouldn't be blamed for her death. The mission had turned FUBAR from the very beginning and they had been ordered to retreat, but not before 767 had taken a bullet between the eyes. She had been their recon, and they had almost been killed when they had retrieved her corpse from the enemy. Even dead, an X5 was too important and cost too much to be left behind.

Now 511, his SIC, his friend, was on surgery with little hope to be able to walk again, thanks to a bullet in his spine. 427 had a broken knee and a bullet in the shoulder. 606 was on surgery too with the doctors trying to remove two bullets from her stomach and her spleen, and 382 had a smashed foot and a broken hip, because she had thought she would be able to stop a hummer by herself. 494 was mad at her. If 511 hadn't killed the driver, she would be dead.

With his dislocated shoulder and the bullet hole in his left thigh, he was the luckiest, and now that the nurses had released him, he was able to clear his mind or at least try.

He didn't know that place. Till today, he believed that the Seattle facility was the only one still working. He had thought that after the escape of 2009, the Wyoming facility had been removed. So, imagine his surprise when the helicopter had landed here and when he had seen X-series training. But his ignorance was normal, they were just soldiers, they didn't need to know anything else.

Meandering inside a building, 494 quickly recognized the dorms. It was the same as at Seattle. Obviously their architect was lazy enough not to do different plans. He saw the guards and saluted them. They didn't stop him. After all, he was an X5 in an X5 corridor, and he had the right to be here, or nobody had forbidden him yet. He wanted to see them, to see if they were trained differently, and maybe see some twins of his unit mates. Not his, his was an 09er, but they had heard rumors than they were a lot of twins, thanks to the in vitro fertilization. He knew how bad 713 and 289 wanted to have twins, they couldn't stop to talk about the pranks they could do together.

The first door was open and he noticed five X5 playing cards on a bunk in the empty dorm.

"Hi," he said.

"Who are you?" asked a huge (for a teenager) blond guy.

494 smiled. 545 had a twin and he was in front of him.

"I'm 494, and you are 544 or 546?"

"6, and what are you doing here?" The blond grumbled. He was even less affable than 545 and that was something.

"'Wanted to meet some new friends."

"You're 494, 493's twin," said a brown guy with disdain.

"And so?"

"We don't talk to traitor's family."

"Pardon?" 494 was stunned; that was a first.

"You heard us. Move. We don't want you here."

494 laughed. What were their problems? As if he hadn't suffered enough for his brother. It wasn't them who had spent six months in Psy-Ops to be sure it wasn't genetic. But 494 wasn't in his best shape to beat the crap out of them, so he shrugged and left the dorm.

Suddenly he didn't want to befriend the Wyoming X-series anymore. He just wanted to go back to the infirmary and go home with the remainders of his team.

He smelt blood before he heard the punches and cheers. It wasn't his business, but he couldn't help but glance by the aperture in the door. What he saw made his bile rise and a shiver run across his spine.

In the center of the dorm, some X5 were kicking a bloody inanimate body on the floor. The rest of the unit was looking at the show with wide cruel grins.

"My turn," said a girl with blond locks, seizing the iron bar a boy was playing with.

Without hesitation, she threw the rod against what was probably the shoulder of their victim.

In a blur, 494 opened the door and propelled the girl against the wall.

"What do you think you are doing?" he yelled at them.

They all looked astonished at his action.

"Who do you think you are?" said a black girl with anger.

"A soldier. And you what do you think you are? Some beasts? Are you trying to kill him?"

"Trying is the key word. The bitch refused to die."

"That's a girl? But you're crazy. Whatever she did to you, you have no right to beat her like pulp," 494 was furious. He kneed beside the unconscious girl and tried delicately to take her body in his arms.

"Yeah, right. Do you know who she is?"

"Whoever she is is not relevant. Be assured I will notify your trainer of your behavior."

The unit laughed, and their laugh was as cold as hyena's.

"Do that," said the blond-locks girl with a smile. "That's 452, the traitor. He will congratulate us."

Without looking back, 494 left the dorm with the bloody body in his arms. When he passed the guards, they didn't even look at him. 494 could feel his anger rise. She was an 09er, so what? She deserved to die? What was that place? And he thought Seattle was bad…

When he kicked the door of the infirmary open, a nurse had the decency to look at him.

"452?" She wasn't really asking and 494 glared at her. "Call the doctor McKey. Tell him 452 is here, again. She needs a scan and prepare her for the surgery." She told another nurse.

Then she turned towards 494 with a sheepish smile and sighed. "Do you know what happened this time?"

"Other than her unit beats her like pulp with boots, fists and iron bar?"

"The usual, so."

"The usual? That's the usual? She didn't even look human anymore. How can you let that happen?"

"Hey, kid, I'm just a nurse. I'm not the one who orders that." She was cleaning the blood.

494 had to refrain himself to look away. Her brown locks were dark red by blood. Her nose was smashed; he still could see the print of a boot in her face. Her lips were bleeding and the rest of her body quickly became blue, yellow and black.

"Could you look in her medical files for me?" asked the nurse. "I need to know witch ribs were broken last time."

494 did what asked. The file was larger than the Seattle telephone book.

"Oh crap," said the nurse. "Where is McKey? Her right lung is perforated. We need to operate immediately."

The other medical staff arrived and the next minute, they were running towards the surgery.

494 was still looking at the door where they had disappeared a long time ago, when a tiny foxy tawny girl hopped near him.

"Earth to 494. What are you looking at?"

"382, you need to rest."

"I will, when my CO will do the same. You're still injured. And why are you covered in blood?" She sniffed. " Not yours."

"Encounter with an 09er."

"Really? They have one? How is he?"

"She's a she and I dunno. They're crazy here."

"Why? And why are you covered with an 09er's blood? Did she attack you?"

"No, she didn't. They were beating her to death."

382 thought an instant that her CO was joking, until she saw anger and fear in his eyes. She put her hand on his non-injured shoulder.

"How are the others?" he asked her.

"They're okay. 511 will walk again."

"So, let's go home. I don't want us to stay here longer."

A/N: So? Love? Hate? Review?