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In the course of twenty-four hours, life had utterly changed for Alex Manes. It's something he had turned his back on twice before. Something that he had accepted was better for Michael, not for himself, but that if he wanted to keep the man he loved safe, it was a choice he'd have to make. Not again. Not any longer. Not that he isn’t fearful, deep down, about how things will turn out but that fear isn't worth giving up again.
To keep all that he's gained though, Alex knows he has to secure their safety from whatever forces might conspire against them. The greatest of those forces though was mostly certainly Jesse Manes, and Alex would find a way to ensure he did not interfere with their lives again. No, not lives. Their life. In a single night they had gone from nearly two decades of knowing one another, of coming to love one another, and instead of walking away from all of that, they had turned it into a plan fo the future.
If they can secure it.
While Michael worked out the trailer, his family, the things he needed to work out in his own head after confessing everything to the man he loved, Alex had a singular mission that he was focused on. Finding out a way to ensure that Jesse Manes could not, and would not, come between them again.
Alex knows part of this and all that he's nearly lost has been his own doing. He had made that decision to choose family over his heart. He had decided that he could be the son his brothers were, that his father wanted him to be and he had given up everything to try and be just that. Only now has he realized how unimportant any of that was, and how it was meaningless without love in his life. True love and not abuse. He'd nearly given up everything good in his life for the pain and fear he'd always known, and now that he'd decided not to turn his back again, it was time to clear it out of his life for good.
Following Jesse Manes without being spotted was easier than it ever should have been. Maybe Jesse felt secure in Roswell after all these years. Maybe he was just arrogant enough that he thought he had nothing and no one to answer to. As the days went on and Alex began to get a picture of what was going on beneath the surface of Roswell, literally beneath the surface, he began to realize it was definitely the latter. Jesse Manes thought he had no one to answer to, and Alex was prepared to show his father just how wrong he was.
Gaining access to this private base that his father reported to, and where no one else ever seemed to report, was easier than it should have been. It had been harder getting into that space beneath the cabin with the help of another than it had been gaining access to the secret military base.
Despite gaining access during a time after his father had left, Alex did not have enough reconnaissance to know just how much time he had. There hasn’t been enough watching to be certain he won’t be interrupted, and so he works quickly. Most of it is setting things into place for when he returns, but that time not alone. Then he’ll have to manage controlling a body in this space, to not harm himself in doing so, and to make sure Jesse doesn’t realize how bad it all was until it was too late.
Planning at least was something that the military had drilled into Alex, so it wasn't hard to move quickly as his body allowed, and to already have all he needed there waiting for him. Once the underground room was ready, it was only a matter of time. Running on adrenaline and excitement and love, Alex ignored the pain in his leg, both real and phantom, and settled in close to be able to hear and not be seen as he waited with water and shade until he heard the Humvee coming down the dirt road. The engine sound growing slowly, a gradual increate until Alex wasn't aware of how loud it truly was there away from everything else. Not until the engine shut off and the silence around them was louder than any engine. Alex held his breath, counting his father’s steps to the “hidden” door. Listened for the beep, the click of the hatch opening, and then the secure thunk as it closed.
Only when it was safe did he move out of hiding, coming to stand by his father's vehicle and wait. Waiting for his chance, and praying it will go well and knowing that it won't. He didn't care though. Whatever he has to do, Alex knew he could handle this. Michael had been through so much and lost the things that mattered to him time and again and he wasn't ever willing to give up. Now, neither was Alex.
Thankfully he didn’t have to wait long before the door opened once more and Jesse Manes was relocking the door, using scrub and tumbleweeds to cover the control pad.
Hey, Sarge.
Alex, I don't know what you think you're doing here, but it is not a good idea. It is not safe for you. So, for your own good, you need to leave and never come back to this place, you understand me?
Well, I was kind of hoping that we could go grab a beer. We could talk about the family legacy. Jim Valenti. And, um, oh, yeah, aliens.
I have a busy schedule. I don't have time to discuss science fiction with you.
Just like that Alex is yet again just someone to be dismissed. Again Jesse treated Alex like a child, like an errant dog who would be punished later for not behaving, whether he remembered why or not. In his head, Alex had a million ways this could have gone, how he would handle this when his father denied his request, denied the things he was saying. It had never occurred to him it would even go any other way. It was all about how he would handle it.
Every single way he had considered had been based in logic and words. All of them vanished in that moment as anger welled up within him. His entire life Jesse has used him. He had abused Alex, and mistreated him, and acted as if Alex was nothing more than a dark mark on his record as a true Manes Man. Not smart enough. Not quick enough. Not man enough in his demeanor or sexuality.
The only thing that Alex had ever done to receive any of the respect he wanted from his father had been in coming home crippled for a war he hadn’t wanted to fight. In that moment realizing that even in coming home without his leg and with a purple heart, he had failed Jesse. He hadn’t wanted a son who was a war hero. He had wanted a son that was in a wood box beneath an American flag so that Jesse could forever capitalize on what happened to Alex without ever having to face him again.
He hadn’t sent Alex off to help win a war. He had sent him off to die.
All right.
He shifted, balancing on his good leg as his grip moved out of the brace and onto the shaft of the crutch.
Tried to be polite.
And then Alex swung. He gripped the crutch and swung as hard as he could.
It was such a risk, a chance that he could kill Jesse rather than just knocking him out. In the back of his mind there was a thought that another hit and Alex could be sure of it, could ensure that his father would never be a threat to him and Michael ever again. Except that was not the man Alex was, and he had a much better idea of how he could ensure Jesse Manes was never a part of their life again.
He waited, watching his father’s prone body for a long time, thinking about how easy it might be. After a time though he bent over, pressing his fingers at the fold of Jesse's throat, feeling his pulse. Fairly solid all things considered.
“I guess you get to live to see another day then,” he murmured, moving to get his hands under his father’s armpits and dragging him to the trapdoor.
The code doesn’t even need to be broken after having seen Jesse enter the code a few times and knowing it without a second thought.
Leaving the door standing open, he took hold of Jesse once more and dragged his father down the stairs. Alex ensured his head stayed clear of the stairs, but he wasn't much worried about how battered and bruised Jesse would be after Alex wrestled him into the rolling chair at the bottom of the stairs. As Alex had already decided, he would live this day but that didn’t mean he had to feel good about it tomorrow, did he?
Once the door was closed again and zip ties had been secured to keep Jesse Manes upright in his chair, Alex settled himself at the keyboard. For a long moment he just sat there, staring up at the screen. For a moment there were so many memories he couldn’t settle his brain, not enough to think of where he should begin.
Thinking about his first days in the Middle East. The first time he had cracked a code that others had given up on, finding a “tab” that when he pulled at it unraveled so much that they had information they weren’t even looking for. He thought about the pride he had felt then, the way the men around him had congratulated him and respected him. They didn’t care who he was in love with. They didn’t care that he could be a bit shy and soft spoken compared to many of his fellow airmen. They only cared that he had a mind that could work through some of the most twisted codes and save lives.
Jesse Manes had sent his son off to war not actually caring how he might arrive home, but what he had done as well was give Alex the strength and conviction to seek what it was he wanted in life. That desire to get Alex out of Roswell, away from Michael and out of Jesse’s life had also led to this moment, giving Alex the knowledge and inner strength to do something he couldn’t have ten years earlier.
Rid himself of his abusive father once and for all.
The codes the government had set up for Project Shepherd were next to nothing. Maybe they had been cutting edge when the project had begun, when everything had been transferred from paper to binary, but they had obviously grown sloppy over the years. Maybe they assumed by then that no one would come looking, or stupidly that true security wasn’t needed. What remained was a handful of encryptions that were less than colleges used to encrypt their student data, and passwords that were barely required to be a step above password12345.
Or in Jesse’s case: manesJ and his birth date. Might as well have put please look at me. Alex hadn’t even had to use actual software to bypass the system. It wasn’t the biggest insult that Jesse had ever played on his son, but it came damn close in assuming Alex would never be in this room, at this keyboard.
So while Jesse Manes slept off the destruction of his son’s crutch, Alex worked on learning just what it is that Project Shepherd knew, and how much he could destroy from where he was sitting. His biggest concern was that the system, while antiquated, was setup to forward all new entries to Jesse’s superiors, thereby ensuring that whatever Jesse had learned, others knew. It meant nothing he did would be enough to protect Michael and his siblings. If, and a big if, Jesse knew the truth.
Sadly, as Alex soon found, his father knew the truth and then some.
Video surveillance meant he had seen things that Alex witnessed for the first time sitting there, including how much of a tantrum his angry cowboy of a boyfriend could pull with the kick of his foot. Something that brought more fondness to Alex’s expression than concern. Not that it staved off that panic for long.
A terrorist threat.
The United States government thought that Michael was a national threat. Someone who, in this day and age, could be sentenced to prison if they didn’t know the truth about him. And if they did, prison would be a kind reprieve from what they would likely to do to Michael to find out what truly made him tick.
Panic and bile rising in the back of his throat, acidic and burning as Alex fought to swallow back against the rising fear. Except none of it made sense. If the government had all of this evidence, documented and footnoted and tagged with names and dates and addresses then why hadn’t some men in black team descended on Roswell as it was believed they had in 1947? It had taken days to basically tag and bag every bit and piece associated with the original landing - or attempt to though Alex knew now how much they had missed - up to and including the rocks things laid against and the top levels of soil. That was before they really even knew for sure what they had.
Knowing what all Jesse had gathered, why wouldn’t they have already removed Michael, Isobel, and Max?
A few more layers, a few more years of evidence, and Alex found his answer.
The entire room went silent but for the hum of the fans as Alex sat back in his chair. Staring up at the massive monitor above him, reading the letter than had been sent to Jesse Manes nearly a decade earlier.
.. lack of evidence… federal budget cuts… unable to justify continued research… cease any further activity immediately...
Whereas a moment before Alex had been reading over Michael’s death sentence, he suddenly found himself staring at the governor’s reprieve, complete with an immediate release from jail, as it were.
Jesse Manes, perfect career airman who did everything by the book or he didn’t do it at all, was derelict in his duty. He had disobeyed a direct order. And why? Because the object of his son’s attention just happened to be the proof they were looking for of survivors of the 1947 crash? So he had spent eight years lying to the government, lying to his family, and sitting on this evidence until what? What did he even plan to do with it? Passing it on to his superiors would reveal that he had disobeyed a direct order, so what could he do with it besides label Michael a terrorist without…
The acetone. The lab. He knew about that as well, and those items could definitely mean the death knell to Michael’s freedom.
Well, it would have.
His finger flew over the keys, setting up a transfer so that every bit of Project Shepherd was transferred to Alex’s private server. Eventually he may need all of this and Michael should know just what Jesse had. Then Alex locked up everything so that only he had access to it. Should anyone else try and get back into the mainframes, everything in them would be wiped in a matter of minutes.
Hearing a groan from behind him, Alex shut down all the windows. He didn’t want Jesse to know what all Alex already knew. Not until he was ready to tell him.
Alex?
Morning.
What are you doing?
Well, I'm just trying to spend a little quality time with my dad.
And if Alex is lucky, it’s the last time they’ll ever spend together.