A/N: Happy Birthday, Mako face, enjoy being an old woman.

The Birthday Present

The darkness is total, a crushing absence of any kind of comforting light that might give him hope. It's so black that even after long minutes squeezing one eye shut and then the other, his sight still can't adjust enough to see his fingers held just before his nose. He can hear his breathing, loud and raspy in his ears. It's a little faster than it should be, a little shallower, with the fear that he would deny even to himself until his dying day.

He doesn't know how long he's been in here, but he knows why. He knows he is causing them problems and it thrills his heart in a way nothing else can. They were expecting an achievement to be proud of, a tool to be used in missions of greatness... instead they got a boy. A boy with emotions and a mind of his own, with a will that refused to be broken. What they got was flawed. Perhaps flawed beyond their ability to rectify.

But they couldn't afford to start again, that was his only saving grace. A bitter thought, an angry thought, that only his material cost saves him time and again from the scrap heap.

Technically he's only five years old, but his growth has been accelerated and his body is that of someone just pre-pubscent. Nine? Perhaps even ten in human terms. They will accelerate him until he's grown, until he's at his most useful, and then they'll stall him. They'll stunt any further aging to maximise his usefulness. He might only be five, but five long years of degredation and experiments have already taught him to dread the countless more he has left to him.

He tries to focus on something other than the darkness to take his mind away from the fear he will be left here to rot, he knows this is just another one of their attempts to make him obedient and pliant to their will. They've tried it all. Torture, beatings, deprivations of food, water, sleep, and now even light. They've even tried to reason with him, bribe him, and one even pleaded with him 'for the good of mankind'. He won't let anything work. They don't have anything he wants, and they don't have any leverage over him.

Closing his eyes so that he can pretend the darkness is of his own making, he balls small hands into fists and tries to count. Something mundane. Days, perhaps. The days since he has been made. One... two... three...

By the time he has finished his count, the next day has begun, and he has realised that this is his birthday. The day human children might be spoiled and petted, the day they celebrate their good fortune to have been born instead of created like an animal. His mouth twists into a bitter smile at the idea of being given a present by the faceless scientists who work here. The idea that they might give him something that he would enjoy is ludicrous... laughable... So laughable that his shoulders are shaking with mirth. It must be mirth, right? Those have to be tears of joy...

The door suddenly opens and light floods in, so bright that it's painful. His eyes water from the intensity of it, and he can pretend that the dampness on his cheeks is new. Spots dance in front of his eyes, but they don't give him time to adjust. Hands grab him from either side, tight and bruising and not taking any chances that he might get free. They march him along the corridor, no doubt towards their next attempt to break him.

He wonders with grim disconnect what his 'birthday present' will be.

They do not speak to him, they do not waste words on a disappointment like him. They only pull him onwards and push him through a door which slides closed behind him with a soft, pnuematic hiss. He still can't see properly and he holds himself warily, ready to lash out with fists and teeth and feet at whoever or whatever is in here with him. He blinks hard, forcing his eyes to recover, and slowly he sees a mess of blond swim into view.

What...?

He stands still as a statue until his vision is properly clear and he can drink in the sight in front of him. Another him, but not so. A him with visible imperfections to the symmetry. A him with blond hair and a tidy uniform, a him without bruises, a him with calm eyes that seem to arrest his heart and stop it beating. He waits for the other to do something, to say something. He must be a replacement, or perhaps a prototype to instruct him on how to behave, or...? He waits for a lecture, for a fight, for shouting, he's ready for anything.

Or not.

He's not ready at all for when the boy, the other him, smiles.

Nobody has ever smiled at him properly before, and Abel has never seen a smile like it. It seems to fill the room with warmth, it seems to promise everything will be okay. It's affectionate and joyful and somehow more innocent than he's ever been. He reaches out a hand and feels a small internal thrill as the action makes the other boy's smile widen, before he too is reaching out. When they touch, palm to palm and fingers to fingers, it feels like coming home.

And just like that, his heart is beating again, a hard and painful drum in his chest.

And just like that, his heart is lost.

They have found their something that can be used to make him obey, they have found their leverage, and he finds that he doesn't care after all. What does it matter what victories they think they have achieved, when he has been given the greatest birthday present of all?