A Small Glitch

Finally Merry

Dark and Anti both sat on their couch while Annalise was on the floor, playing with a Barbie and a toy car. She was happily giggling as she sat the doll on the car and rolled it around. She had a pair of earphones on so she wouldn't be able to hear Dark and Anti talk.

"Anti, is she..." Dark let the question hang in the air.

"She can't be mine. She's three, I've been with you for four years." Anti stated.

"The beginning of our relationship was a little rocky. If you-"

"She's not mine." Anti placed a hand on Dark's leg. "I swear to you that I have not been with any other person since we first got together."

"Then, how?" Dark asked. "I thought you said virus' take over a body, use their form and detach into their own beings?"

"We do. That's how I'm here. We're made when there's a fracture in the universe and we get absorbed into an electrical current." Anti stated.

"By the sounds of it, Annalise has been with Jolene her whole life. That...what?" Dark rubbed his temple, very confused and hating that he didn't have an answer.

"The only way that's possible is if when Annalise was coming through the device, she took the form of the fetus inside of Jolene." Anti stated. "She would become the fetus like how I became a full-grown man when I used Jack's form."

"Annalise doesn't have any siblings. What happened to the one she based herself off of?"

"They must have died. It takes a lot to use someone's body to make your own. I had to slit Jack's throat in order to free myself. Ann must have killed...Annalise." Anti plopped back, covering his face with his hands. "My daughter was a murderer before she was even fully processed."

"She clearly didn't do it on purpose, but still." Dark took a deep breath. "It's a good thing we have her, others wouldn't know what to do."

"She killed her own mother...she killed her and doesn't know that she killed her." Anti groaned. "She thinks mommy's in time-out." Anti started to laugh in disbelief. "What are we going to do when she learns that's not true? How do we tell her that she killed her own mother? How-" Anti stopped when Dark was suddenly straddling him.

"She's three, she has no idea what's going on. What she needs to worry about is learning new words and colors and animals." Dark took Anti's hands and put them on his hips while his went to Anti's shoulders. "Annalise is now calmed down, she's no longer glitching and the pixels are gone. I'm going to make a few phone calls and then we can finally call it a day." Dark moved his hands so he was holding Anti's face. "We got her back." He whispered before pulling Anti into a kiss.

"I still wanted to be the one to end her." Anti slightly pouted when they parted.

"We'll kill someone else later." Dark said with a wink.

"We are fucked up." Anti chuckled.

"And I wouldn't want us any other way." Dark gave Anti another quick kiss before getting up. "I shouldn't be long." He added before going into his office.

"Papa?" Annalise asked as she awkwardly removed the earphones, getting her hands tangled up.

"Papa's talking to a few people and then he'll be right out." Anti explained as he joined Annalise on the ground, helping her get out of the mess she made. "We'll have a nice dinner and then I'll read you a bedtime story, how does that sound?"

"Train that could?" Annalise asked as she watched her hands be freed.

"Of course." Anti wrapped the earphones into a ball and set them aside, he looked over at the office door and let out a sigh. "Ann?"