Title: A Fighting Decision

Author: Dark Roswellian Angel

Elizabeth McDowell

Disclaimer: I don't own any of it. If I did, "Dark Angel" would still be airing, and Jensen Ackles would be waiting for me when I got home tonight.

Copying/Downloading/Posting: Please let me know first, and let me know where my work will be posted as I would love to come visit it. Make sure that it is put under my name, as I would love to hear how others feel about it. Thanks ;)

Rating: K Plus- due to minor profanity and reference to fight scene

Summary: 2-parter. Near the end of "Fuhgeddaboudit," Mia makes a realization about something that she's missed and helps Max realize she needs to make a decision.

A/N: For the purposes of this fic, I'm moving the order of a few things around during the episode "Fuhgeddaboudit." You'll understand it as you read it.

Getting the Smackdown by a Realization

As she backed away from Logan, Mia spoke, "You are a beautiful, talented man. (turning towards Max) And you? You couldn't be a more rocking, awesome chick if you tried. You two are going to have the best life together. You're going to have it all. The entire fairytale come true. I know life stinks a little right now, but it can't always stink, right? Believe me. If Dougie and I can make it work, so can you."

Just then, "Monty Cora" and his "trainer" walked up to them. The fighter was leaning heavily on the other man. Max couldn't help the guilt as she looked him up and down. While they were in the rink, she could have sworn she could feel him holding back, like he would prefer to lose to her in front of the whole world and lose all of that money rather than really hurt her. Maybe that was why he had tried so hard to keep her from fighting him in the first place.

She, on the other hand, had gone at him wholeheartedly knowing that she needed to win in order to help Logan and stop Mia. She silently admitted to herself that a small part of her had also worried that if he had won, Alec might have decided to leave so that he could continue fighting. But that was only a very small part of her, she told herself. So, as her eyes continued to rake up and down his broken body barely listening while Normal accused her, "Look what you did to him. What the hell are you?" she tried to tell herself that she had done the right thing. After all, what if he had won and brought the attention of White or some leftover Manticore governmental unit on him? She tried to convince herself that once again she had saved his ass. But she just couldn't quite bring herself to believe it, and she couldn't quite ignore the guilt, or the lust.

Mia had looked somewhat surprised when Max's gaze had left hers and gone to the other X5. With an appraising look, the psy-ops agent had also turned to look at the young man. As she looked back and forth between the two of them, she realized with a start that this young man had not fought his opponent with all of his strength. That meant that somehow Alec had managed to break Mia's control over him so that he could keep himself from hurting this particular feminine challenger. A curious look came over her face as she cocked her head to one side and mused, "Hmm. Then again, maybe I have the fairytale ending right, but the prince wrong," so low that only the other transgenics in the room could hear her.

Max looked at Mia in surprise. She noticed that Alec had also looked at Mia very quickly as though he wasn't sure he had heard her correctly. When his eyes turned back to her, she could feel heat rushing to her face. And she felt Logan stiffen noticeably next to her.

Mia knew it was time to leave this scene, though she promised herself that she would check in with them very soon to see how things were going. She wondered if she could help them realize what they hadn't seemed to yet. "All right, Nappy, time to go."

When Mia left, the four people who were left just looked at each other. Actually, two of them looked at each other and the other two watched them look at each other until both Logan and Normal began to feel exceptionally awkward, and jealous. Logan cleared his throat to get Max's attention, and reality slammed into the girl. She started noticeably and looked at the other two guys in the room- a second ago she couldn't look anywhere else, but now she couldn't bring herself to meet Alec's inquiring eyes. Directing herself entirely to her "date," she said, "I'll be right back. I just need to… powder my nose." Without waiting for acknowledgement, she turned and tried her best to not look like she was running away.

The three men looked at each other. Without Max in the room, they realized that they felt slightly less awkward, but they had no idea what to say to each other.

After a few seconds, Logan spoke up. "Well, she might be a few minutes. You guys (he looked pointedly) really don't need to wait for us. Why don't you get home and try to take care of some of those wounds," Logan ended his self-serving suggestion with a note of derision in his voice.

Alec looked at the older man and recognized his words and tone for what they were. He saw him as competition. Alec smirked Finally. There wasn't a chance in the world he'd be leaving before they did.