Choices
"What did you do now?" OC asked, impatience ringing in her voice.
"It wasn't me!" Alec exclaimed defensively.
"Well you must have done somethin'," she drawled, eyeing the dark haired transgenic with concern.
"So you automatically assume it's my fault?" Alec retorted in protest.
OC shot him a look.
"Okay, alright, maybe some, okay, a lot of the time, I might have done something, but even I need a break to refresh my act," he offered somewhat sheepishly.
OC regarded him for a second before taking this matter to its root cause.
"You aight boo?"
"What?" Max said, looking up as if she'd just been caught sneaking cookies from the jar.
"Only you look like somebody just told you that sweet ride of yours was outta commission," OC continued, crossing her arms and leaning against the lockers as Max locked hers up.
"Yeah fine," she replied, not meeting her friend's questioning gaze as she passed her on the way to the door.
A couple of familiar beeps told them Logan had just paged her. Max glanced at the device attached to her backpack but carried on walking.
"Aren't you gonna hit the man back?" OC called out.
"Later," was all she got back.
OC turned to Alec with a 'see what I mean' look. The young transgenic frowned as he considered Max's retreating figure.
"I'll get on it."
"Good and you get her down to Crash as soon as you're done. My girl could do with some fun with the week she's had."
"Done," Alec promised as he followed after Max.
"Disappeared pretty quick after work today," Alec commented a while later, taking in the view as he stood atop Seattle's infamous Space Needle.
"I come here to be alone," came Max's unmistakable mutter. Her line never changed no matter how many times he interrupted her alone time up here.
"I know. But I figure you might need a friend what with today being the anniversary," came Alec's firm reply. He didn't move from where he stood, hands in pockets as he waited for her response.
Max froze imperceptibly. He had remembered. Just when she thought he was okay to trust with small time heists he went and redefined himself. He did it all the time. Always changing. Constantly catching her off guard.
She said nothing. She simply continued to stare out into the vast night sky of post-Pulse Seattle. It used to be the capital of the world for advances in technology. Now it was the capital of basic human nature. Chaos and corruption. Destruction and double crossing.
"I know I'm probably the last person you want to see –"
"So get," Max interrupted sharply.
Alec blinked. He should have seen that coming.
"Hey, I just don't want to be the one with the guilty conscience if you slip off that edge," he said matter-of-factly. He had intended to keep it light-hearted since he was sure Max wouldn't fail to come through with all the heart wrenching depressive stuff. But even he wasn't sure where the joke was in that.
It worked though. She finally turned to visually acknowledge his presence.
"Guilty conscience? Like you know."
"You're not the only one who's done some regrettable things in the past," Alec reminded her shortly.
"Right, I forget, because you got an Ordinary, an innocent young girl caught in the crossfire. Try hearing the snap when you break the neck of the only person who cared enough to run from the only thing he knew, the only thing he could explain, just to save you from yourself," Max seethed. But even in spite of herself she knew that was a low blow. She had witnessed first hand how he felt about Rachel.
And yet, he took it. He didn't know why because it was thoroughly undeserved. Just like all those times Max shot him dirty looks, called him names and variously hit, slap or kicked him. But just like all those other times, he took it. Or rather, he let it wash over him. It had been a long time since he had let anything in so deep as to really cut. He was a good soldier. He learnt his lessons.
"And you'd do it again tomorrow," Alec stated simply, with a slight shrug of his broad shoulders.
Max looked at him before shaking her head.
"Would I? Would I be that weak? Would I really kill him again to save myself?"
Alec chuckled despite the circumstances.
"You think this is funny?" Max dared herself to ask, unable to believe his callousness. He had done it again. Caught her off guard.
"Hilarious," he humoured before his demeanour switched to indicate otherwise.
"You lasted out here a lot longer than you would've inside," Alec remarked after a brief pause. Max regarded him before turning her attention back to the skyline.
"You know what is funny?" he continued, doing the same and turning his gaze to Seattle as she slept. Max didn't bother replying.
"To the world and his mother, we are the perfect target because we defy everything they're used to. We're the perfect weapon, you've got the perfect DNA. We're practically flawless." She heard the pride in his voice.
"But when it comes down to it, we're just as human as everyone else," Alec shrugged with a wane smile, "maybe it's irony."
"Well, you hit that one on the head," Max said dryly without looking at him.
Alec waited, positive she was going to say more. That was about as profound as he got and he knew Max had to give him more than that little comment.
"Irony's the story of my life. Escaping from the place that made me only to find that no matter how many times I burn it down I'm still running. Killing my brother only to have his clone live in my city, work at my Jam Pony and hang out with my friends. Falling in love with a man who dies if I touch him."
Max nodded slowly to herself, hugging her knees.
"The grass was definitely greener on the other side," she added quietly.
"Isn't it always?"
Max paused, then, "Why are you here Alec?" twisting round to see him.
"I told –"
"I heard."
Alec considered her for a moment. Taking his hands out of his pockets, he came and sat down beside her.
"It's not really Ben getting to you. It's not the fact that you killed him."
Max looked at him in question.
"It's the fact that you could. The fact it came so normally to you. The fact that it was only that he was your brother that made you think twice. You wake up every day and you know you're never gonna be a part of this broken city. Because it'll take longer than we've got for this place to accept us for what we are."
Max hugged her knees tighter. She wasn't cold but she desperately felt the need to cling onto something, to hold onto something.
"Back at Manticore, Zack was my CO but Ben was my friend. He made shadow puppets and told his fantastic stores. And he did it when he badly needed the sleep after sixteen hours straight of battle strategies, weapons training, combat techniques. He didn't have my shark DNA. He needed his rest. But no matter how tired he was, how worn down the day had made him, he always stayed up with me. He was older than me and that day in the woods he looked every part the man you are. But he was just a lost little boy who had let the endless answerless questions define him."
Alec blinked. Max had never been this forthcoming about his twin. She liked to talk about the past about as much as he did. But whereas he would at least use the past as source material for his light-hearted quips, Max never referred to the time before she was eleven.
"And I killed that little boy. He asked me to, so I did. I broke his leg, then I broke his neck and then I ran. And that's who I am."
Alec watched her, expecting to see those tears fall silently down the smooth skin of her cheeks. To his surprise, there was no crying.
"Not to pretend I know the guy but we did share the same genetics and I know I wouldn't want you to make me a scapegoat."
Max snapped her attention to him.
"If brother Ben was as good a friend to you as you keep saying he was, I doubt he'd haunt you the way you seem to be," Alec stated as if it were as plain as day.
Max shook her head as she looked back over Seattle.
"This is me, Alec. I'm not gonna sugar coat anything for you, cramps my style so I'm not gonna sit here and tell you you're not a killer. But would you stop with the selfish bitch act already?" he said.
It was so like him. His no nonsense brand of brutal honesty that made her want to kick his ass on a daily basis. His quick and often thoughtless comments that she knew he knew grated her. But she had grown to appreciate his careless remarks, offered without hesitation or invitation. Had become accustomed to his obvious manipulation of people using his Manticore given abilities.
"No," she replied shortly.
That caught him off guard.
"No?" he echoed, just to make sure he heard right.
"No," she affirmed, " because if I'm not the selfish bitch always on your back about your dirty scams and the way you treat women, I only have killer left. And that can't be all I am, it can't."
And there it was. The reason for the way she was. Just that simple.
And for the first time since he had known her, Alec heard desperation in Max's voice. This surprised him more than anything else he had known her to say or do. Because even if she wasn't the Manticore trained soldier, she was still Max - the most self assured individual he knew besides himself. She never let anything slip, even when he knew it was just a mask.
"That's not all you are," Alec assured her quietly.
Max laughed harshly at that.
"Are you listening to me? Billions of dollars in tax diverted to this covert government project and all they could come up with was this pathetic self-pitying me."
She laughed shortly.
"Well quit it already then," Alec ordered abruptly.
"Before we got out, that was all I could think about. And then when we got out, all I had in my head was fitting in and just being a regular girl. But then I started hearing from the others. Some of 'em were doing alright but Zack, Brin, Jondy, Ben…they weren't so alright. And then we took Manticore down. And, well, you've been here, you know what it's been like. Even counting out the nomalies and transhumans, we're never gonna be regular. We're never gonna fit in. For all we look like Ordinaries, and feel the same things, we're always gonna have a barcode on our necks, always gonna be faster, stronger, smarter. So even if we get past these people accepting us, I'll still be Ben, asking the questions, wondering what my next mission is, what I'm supposed to focus on next."
At that Alec stopped. This was why he never let himself time enough to think. But he had a sneaking suspicion that even if he had all the time in the world, he would never let himself delve into his thoughts. Because this was exactly what would come out. He was equally aware of everything Max was saying. And she seemed to read his mind.
"And I think that, is why I'm always on your case. Because I can't really see you not thinking along these exact same lines. After all, we were made in the same lab. But unlike me, you don't wallow in it, you don't let yourself think about it."
Alec shrugged, looking at his hands as he fiddled. He let out a short chuckle.
"Well if I'm not the charming, handsome, quick-witted guy then all I have left is killer too."
Max watched him, waiting. He hid it so well. He was so good at it. Keeping his thoughts on a leash, his fears, his insecurities, his doubts. He never let any of it out of the little container Manticore had built for him, somewhere inside his head. His cockiness and his sharp tongue were all a façade. She knew that as well as he did. But the mask he had chosen was well liked, popular and affable. And he had only ever let it slip once. But it had been all she had needed to know he was just like her. And yet not, in so many ways.
"But, far be it for me to say I'm okay with that within arm's reach of you, I'm not gonna beat myself up over something I've done my damnedest to change. I was made to be a soldier and soldier's are made to protect and serve. And if that means having to kill then that's part of who I am. But unlike you, I don't think it's all I am."
Alec laughed, the sound coming deep and comforting. He had such a genuine laugh. It was the one time he honestly seemed untouched by the cruelty of the hand they had been dealt.
"You've been out here eleven years longer than I have so I'm gonna go out on a limb and suppose you've seen all the crap I've seen. And still, you think the worst thing about this world is you."
He laughed again, looking at her with his dancing hazel green eyes.
"Self centred much?"
And in spite of herself, Max had to grin. Alec shook his head.
"And that's what you are. A hypocrite."
Max blinked. Of all the surprises Alec sprung on her, she hadn't seen that one coming for a million miles.
"The Governments pretends you don't exist. The Ordinaries want you dead. And a lot of the transgenics you let loose can't see past the traitor from '09. Personally, I wouldn't bother with 'em but somehow, you're still convinced people aren't all bad. And yet when it comes to you, you can't see past your past. You can't see past all the things you wish you could take back or undo."
Max stared past him into the distance. It baffled her how she could be the one with ten years of independent thought and yet Alec the one with this insight. When had she become some consumed in her self-pity that she had stopped being able to see herself?
"You broke outta your hell only to run right back into it," Alec added shrewdly.
Max nodded absently, weighing up his words, knowing he was right. She had run from Manticore but she had never really escaped her prison. She had never taken the opportunity that being on the outside had given her. She had got a job, made friends, made a life but she had never lived it. Had never allowed herself to fully enjoy it because she found it impossible to believe she deserved it.
Nothing was deserved at Manticore, except the confinement and the psychological put downs and the gruelling training schedule. Nothing good happened to her at Manticore. And she still found it difficult to forget she wasn't there anymore.
After all the things she had done, Max had never thought she could relish her freedom because it would be wrong. But Alec was right. As long as she lived this half life, just existing on the periphery of society, she would never truly be free.
"You might be a killer Max but you're one with a conscience and out here, that counts for a whole lot more'n anything else you want to give credit to."
She looked at him, really looked at him. It was as if she was suddenly seeing him for the first time. She didn't turn to him and see a man wearing the face of her dead brother. She didn't see the annoyingly self-assured smart-aleck for which she had named him. Nor the charismatic charmer who knew he could talk his way into and out of any situation. Not even the disarmingly handsome man he undoubtedly was.
No, she saw an eternal optimist who refused to let this broken world break his spirit. She saw a soldier at peace with his life and a man at peace with himself. She saw a pragmatist who knew he had to do what he had to and would do it without a qualm. Max saw Alec, her friend who would always stubbornly fight for his life.
"I know I'm easy on the eyes Max, but there's no need to stare," Alec commented, disconcerted by the way she was considering him so intently.
Max grinned, a genuine, no holds barred grin.
"It's taken me eleven years outside to get where you are after a couple months."
She shook her head.
"And you wonder why I dislike you so much," she finished.
"You're just jealous of my good looks," Alec shot back, settling back into the easy going manner he was comfortable in, but more importantly, good at.
Max rolled her eyes at him, and that's when he knew she'd be alright.
"So what do you say? Ready to let Ben go?"
She looked at him, searching his warm eyes for some sign of reassurance that she was doing the right thing. And it hit her that far from being a perpetual pain in her ass, Max needed him, needed her smart Alec. He was more of a friend to her than Logan or OC could ever be because they could never understand. As much as she valued them and needed them, neither they nor anyone would ever compare to the place Alec occupied in her life.
Max nodded slowly, turning back to Seattle.
Too long had she punished herself for a choice her brother had made for her. And too long had the memory of that day with her brother unwittingly captured her guilt. If she deserved no more than the weight of his death at her hands, then Ben at least deserved more than to be remembered as a reason for her to hate herself. He was a good man who had let his spirit be broken in just the way Alec's never would. Ben had let his need for answers become him when Max had known he was so much more. He had let his past taint him and he had allowed the memories of all the sins he had committed to steal from him his sanity. In his bid to find salvation he had sacrificed himself so often that he had lost sight of that which he sought: his identity.
But she would learn from his mistake. She would not become him. She would not let her life revolve around the search for a purpose, or a reason, or herself. She would not become her bar code. If only because her dear Ben deserved so much more.
"Goodbye Ben."
A/N - if you're a Nun, review at NWP