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Rebellion

Author's Note: Thanks to everyone reading! 

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On the drive home, the three of them were almost absolutely silent. Todd and that girl were passed out in the back seat, and Mikko had occupied his time by inspecting them.

Jasper was focused on the road, keeping an ear out for the sounds of another car. Shai's mind wouldn't stop racing.

How could Todd be Tegan? It wasn't possible for him to be. He was just a Rat like her, he couldn't possibly have any Archy blood in him.

It would make sense though why he knew so much about how to act like a Brighty. Shai never questioned it because she just assumed he learned it by watching Brighties in the Market. If he was an Archy he would know all of this.

Why did he never tell her though? He was the only person she had complete trust in and if she was hiding a secret like that she would surely tell him. They've known each other for thirteen years, how could he have never even mention anything?

Jasper pulled into Mikko's driveway. Shai looked over to see that Todd and the girl were still passed out in the backseat. Mikko had reached over to Todd's and pried one of his eyes open with his fingers. The crystal blue iris was staring at Shai, but Todd was still unconscious.

As soon as Jasper turned off the engine, Shai got out of the car and opened Todd's door. She heard Jasper slam his door shut and Mikko got out of the backseat.

Shai grabbed Todd's shoulders and pulled him up. Jasper's hand came in under Shai's and he helped her pull him out of the car. Mikko had already gone inside the house. Throwing one arm over each of their shoulders, Shai and Jasper dragged Todd into the house.

The cluttered hallway made it difficult to drag him down the hallway. Shai had to kick boxes out of her way.

"Be careful with my things!" Mikko shouted out. "Bring them in here."

They followed his voice into a room Shai had barely been in. It was cluttered with furniture and they windows were shattered. Mikko had pulled one of the stained white chairs in front of an old tattered green couch.

"Put Tegan down there," he said pointing towards it.

They dropped him down on the couch and Shai pulled up his legs so that they rested across the couch too.

"I'll go get the girl," Jasper told her before turning around and walking out the door.

Mikko was leaning forward and rested his elbows on his knees. Shai threw the hat off of her head and began tearing away at the skin on her scalp. She struggled to rip off long stringy pieces of the plastic material Mikko had covered her head in. She felt relieved to feel her long, thick hair tumble down her back.

Jasper came in carrying the girl in his arms. When he saw Shai no longer looking like a boy, he smiled at her. He placed the girl down on one of the couches running along the wall.

"Okay," Shai said letting out a deep breath. They didn't speak in the car because they were afraid of catching the attention of anyone. Jasper didn't even turn on the lights of the car while driving home. "Why wouldn't ya just tell me that Tegan was Todd?"

"I wasn't sure if it was," Mikko told me. "He sounded like he could have been. He came into the camp around the same time the Royal file showed up in the system."

"The Royal file?" Jasper asked.

"Everybody in the Monarchy has one," Mikko said. "They were always private people and if there was a sickness in the family, they didn't want anyone to know. Their files would only show up on certain scanners. On other scanners, much like the one the Officers who arrested him must have used, it just comes up as unknown. They would have thought he was just like any other Rat."

"That's why no one ever discovered him?" Shai asked.

"Yes." Mikko nodded his head. "His name was another clue. Tegan Oliver Douglas Dyer, or T.O.D.D. I'm surprised you never caught on to that."

"I can't write. I don't know it would have spelt that," she told him. "Anyways, I didn't know what those other names were."

"We don't know much about Archies," Jasper added.

"They try to hide a lot from the Slums," Mikko told them. "Ever since Jonathan's days they've feared a rebellion."

"What's a rebellion?" she asked.

"People getting whiny about the way things are run, so they overtake them so that they can run it the way they'd like."

"How could a bunch of Rats possibly take over Brighties? Especially Archies," Jasper asked him.

Shai had been staring at Todd the entire time. His chest was rising and falling with every breath he took and she was happy to see he was alive.

She looked up from him and looked over at Jasper. His voice sounded the same way it did when he talked about the derby. It was full of interest and intrigue.

"They don't," Mikko said bluntly. "That's why it's called a rebellion. If all of these Rats did somehow manage to win they'd call it a revolution."

It was another word Shai didn't understand. She shook her hand and ran her fingers through the knots in her hair.

"It would never be possible to do that, would it?" Jasper asked. "Brighties have weapons and Rats are group of weak starvin' people."

"Well you just broke into a camp, didn't you? Most people would think that's impossible."

"Just forget about the rebellion," she snapped.

Right now, her biggest worry wasn't about some ridiculous Brighty fear. She wanted to know about Todd. There was a twisting feeling in her gut whenever she thought about it. It was almost worse than knowing he was in a camp.

"Why didn't ya tell me earlier that you thought Todd was Tegan?" she asked Mikko.

"Because you broke into a camp and you're a woman," he told her.

"What?" she asked, clearly confused.

"You're a woman so you get emotional. If I told you that you were saving Todd you would have got so excited and screwed it up. Anyways, you were annoying enough when you just thought it was Tegan."

"So who's this girl?" Jasper asked. He pointed his thumb over his shoulder to gesture to the girl balled up asleep on the couch.

"Hell if I know," Mikko said leaning back into his chair. "She's too old to be Celeste, so I'm doubting she's part of the Monarchy. Everyone else has died of an old age."

Shai sat down on the ground and continued to stare at Todd. She had her legs crossed underneath her and she put her chin up against her hand. Jasper walked over to her and sat down next to her.

The room was dark, but still he looked too different. Shai had only ever known Todd with his mop of long dark hair. She overheard Brodhi tease him about the length, but Todd never cut it. It must have been to hide his identity.

"They cut off all of his hair," she said.

She had said it out loud to no one in particular. Jasper started to rub her back and she ripped her jacket it off. She didn't realize that she was still wearing the Officer's uniform and was sweating inside it.

"He's bald," she continued. "It doesn't even look like him. I don't even know if he is Todd. Without that hair-"

"Shai," Mikko moaned. "They cut off his hair, not his head."

Shai leaned her head over onto Jasper's lap and he began to stroke the side of her neck and along her ear. Her eyes felt tired, but her body was still running on adrenaline. She couldn't go to sleep, and she didn't want to.

"Now we have to sit and wait," Mikko said.

--

Kirby washed his hands thoroughly before he went into the examining room. He hated the thought of being close to something that deadly, but loved possibly being someone so important. He knew that if this worked successfully and they managed to eliminate all of the Rats that Cendrowski would be the one that was praised.

He hated him for that.

He sat in his Office all day staring out his window while Kirby was the one putting on the biohazard suit to go into the infected rooms. He was doing all of the hard work, but he was going to get none of the credit.

Kirby was relieved to no longer have to wear a biohazard suit and mask before going into the baby's room. The glass doors slid open and walked to the small little cradle. It was the only thing in the large empty room and inside it was Juno.

The room had been infected and Juno was vaccinated as soon as she was born. After a few days in the contaminated room she showed no symptoms, so they brought her into a clean room. She'd leave as soon as her parents made it out alive, and Kirby was sure they would.

They just didn't know what their fate was yet. They may make it out of the hospital alive, but they'd be face with a choice. They either went to a camp or died.

It was the idea Zimmer had proposed to him and Cendrowski a couple months ago. Bright was expanding quicker than they had expected and they need more territory. The best place to go was the Slums. The Rats wouldn't go without a fight, so they'd arrest as many as they could before unleashing the Virus. They had to find a vaccine for all of the Brighties and Grey's first. The governor of Pangella was excited about his plan and so was Kirby. It would be great to go beyond these walls and not be in fear and bothered by beggars.

The little baby girl was lying asleep, carefully tucked in. She had thin strands of red hair on the top of her head and her large brown eyes were shut. She had no clothes on for the first few days of her life so that they could monitor her skin to see if it would break out into rashes. As soon as they had confirmed that she was immune, Kirby insisted she'd be put in more comfortable pajamas. She was now in a warm, fuzzy onesie that was covered in pictures of stars.

Kirby looked over his shoulders to see that no one else was around. He reached down and carefully picked up the sleeping baby and curled Juno into his arms.

He had come into her room every night before going home. His wife, Joyce, was pregnant a few months ago. Brighties rarely lose their babies, but sometimes it happens. She called him one day panicking because she was bleeding and Kirby ran home to get her to the hospital. The loss was hard on both of them, but Kirby took it out on himself. He saved lives every day, but he couldn't save his daughter's.

He walked the baby around the large empty room. His footsteps echoed off of the glass walls, but it didn't wake the baby up. He looked up from Juno to see a couple of doctors walking down the hallway. He turned around so that no one could see him holding Juno. Placing her carefully back down, he tucked her back into the bed.

Looking over his shoulder, he could see the doctors walking away from each other with a tablet in their hands. Kirby brushed the thin strands of hair off of the girl's forehead and gave her a soft kiss.

--

"Joyce," Kirby yelled out as he opened up the door to his apartment.

The house was dark, but there was one lamp light in the living room. He could see Joyce's halo of blonde hair peeking out from behind the couch. As he made his way around the couch, he saw that she had a tablet on her lap and was curled up with a blanket around her shoulders. Her eyes were glued to the screen and she acted like she had never heard him come in. He sat down beside her on the couch and began to rub her knee with his hand. She glanced up at him quickly before looking back down at her tablet.

"Hey," she said softly before she began to chew on a strand of her hair.

Ever since they had lost their baby, Joyce has barely said more than five words to him at once. She says on the couch reading a book on her tablet.

"How was your day?" he asked, hoping to start a conversation.

"It was okay," she said. Her eyes were still focused on her lap.

Kirby reached out and ripped it out of her hands. She jumped forward and stretched her arms out and clawed at his arm to get her tablet back.

"Derek!" she yelled out. "Give that back to me."

"Can you just talk to me for a few minutes?" he asked her. "I've been missing my wife lately."

Joyce's large, pale blue eyes softened and her jaw dropped. Since their baby had died, neither of them had said anything to the other about it. They had let it pass like nothing had never happened.

"I haven't gone anywhere," she said, her voice cracking. Her eyes began to glisten with tears and he soon saw one beginning to roll down her cheek. He wiped it away with his thumb, but she smacked his hand away from her face. "Don't."

"I know this has been hard on you-"

"No," she cut him off. "You don't know anything about this."

"I lost my child too."

She took in a deep breath, but Kirby could still see her lips trembling. She wiped her tears hastily away with the back of her hand. She grabbed the blanket and tightened it around herself.

"I just want a baby," she told him.

The tears were still streaming down her cheeks. It made Kirby's throat tighten and his nose began to burn. He felt the tears threaten to erupt from his own eyes. He hated seeing his wife, the woman he loved more than anything else in this world, crying over something he couldn't control.

"Come with me to work tomorrow," he croaked.

"Why?" she said before taking another deep breath. The crying had caused her naturally pale skin to go even whiter. Her eyes were lined with a distinct red rim.

"Just trust me," he said, trying to give her a reassuring smile. "I have a surprise I think you might like."

"What is it?" she asked.

"If I told you that then it wouldn't be a surprise," he said wryly. "Besides, it would be good for you to get out of the house."

Joyce rubbed her eyes a bit more before she gave him a faint smile.

"Okay," she agreed.

He leaned in and gave her a light kiss against the lips. He could taste her salty tears on her lips, but he didn't let that bother him.

He couldn't wait to bring Joyce to meet Juno.

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