DISCLAIMER: Dark Angel and anything officially affiliated with it are not mine.

A/N: My muse only wanted to write standalones and one-shots. So here's one from Alec's POV.

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WHAT'S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT?

It really didn't take me long to figure it out.

I've always prided myself in being smart, though some people would call me more of a smart-ass. One in particular referred to me as a smart-aleck. And well, smart, smart ass, or smart aleck, it didn't take me long to figure out that I was in love with her.

What took long, however, was accepting it.

But it was all about perspective—about how you saw the world, or maybe it was about what you learned to see. It was about what you chose to see.

All my life, the only things I saw when I looked past the perimeter of Manticore were filth and degradation. The stench of disease, the stark sight of poverty, the tinkling sounds of excess and waste, the ugly taste of despair, and the touch of death—all that and more. Especially that last part.

Death.

There had been so much of it around me all the time.

I was all about Duty, Discipline and the Mission. Nothing more, nothing less. I was good at what I did. After all, a job is a job is a job. Nothing more, nothing less. I was the type who did whatever it took to finish the job.

"Mission accomplished," "Objective acquired," and "Subject terminated," were only three of the phrases that often left my lips in those days.

I was the soldier who could and would do anything. If they told me to lie, then I could let the words roll off my tongue like honey. If they told me to steal, then I would take it without missing a beat. If they told me to cry, then I could fake it. If they told me to smile, then I could make it. If they told me to kill…well, I did it.

A job is a job is a job.

All I was doing was my job. There was nothing more to it than that. Or so I believed.

I was taught that all of the shit in the Outside was because of the weakness of emotion. Of wanting things that you could never have, of letting your emotions get the best of you, of crying over spilled milk, and whatever.

I agreed with Manticore on that one. Emotion was a weakness. I mean, it was all I saw. It was all I knew how to see.

All the crying people. All the sad, dying people. All the hopeless eyes. Even the big shots that had been my targets, all they ever talked about was how they could screw some other dumb fuck out of another dollar. Or how they had so many problems because their three mistresses were now conspiring against them. Or how someone was trying to steal all the damned cash that they had stolen in the first place.

Maybe instead of bragging or griping or whining or posturing, they shoulda thought twice about the kid standing next to them that was about to pull the trigger on them.

I never hesitated. It was my job. As far as I was concerned, it wasn't about right or wrong. It was my duty to complete my mission. Nothing more, nothing less.

I did my job and emotions never factored in. I even came to pity everyone who wasn't like me. I couldn't help but think that I got the better end of the deal, because I was untouchable by all the emotional tangles that made people weak.

Well, to be honest, the closest thing I ever got to an emotion was fear.

When I was a kid, they tossed my ass into Psy Ops for reasons that I couldn't even begin to grasp, I realized that I wasn't as invulnerable as I thought. I was afraid.

Worse, I was afraid because of something as elusive as my shadow. Back then, all I ever heard were whispers about another transgenic called 493. I had never met him or even heard of him until I found myself day after day poked, prodded, and tortured by men in white lab coats. Apparently, because of 493, I was due for a full psychiatric evaluation.

Nuts. The idea was ludicrous! I had never once done anything to let them down!

Still I found myself screaming in unbearable pain. Trust me, after a couple of first-hand experiences of the horrors of Psy Ops, it was pretty damned hard to be afraid of anything else but getting my ass tossed back in there again.

Especially when I learned that 493 turned out to be my genetic twin.

And not only that, he was slightly unhinged. A broken soldier. So, I was sent back to PsyOps for more evaluation. That was just the little term they called torture.

Yeah, Ben was like my shadow alright. He was there, and he was a part of me but I could never quite catch him. And neither could Manticore. So they took me.

I figured that if they thought my genetics were weak, they'd torture it out of me. They would push me to my limits to see if I would break or rise to the challenge. I figured that they did all that to me to make me stronger. Make me better than 493.

Fine.

I just didn't want any repeats.

So I tried harder. I learned to lie so that I almost believed. I learned to steal so that no one even realized anything had been stolen. I learned to cry like each tear had been wrenched from my very soul. I learned to charm so I could get my way without any resistance.

And best of all, I learned to kill without a second thought.

I was so good I even got promoted to Deep Cover.

That was when Rachel waltzed into my consciousness. I didn't understand what it was that made my heart beat faster when she came 'round. I didn't get why I was all giddy to do my job. I didn't understand why lying was so hard, and why laughing was so easy all of a sudden. I didn't think it was…love.

I used to make this weird snorting noise every time I heard the word. Love, the worst kind of emotional tangle there was. The kind that turned someone into a fool, the kind that made you do senseless things—the kind of weakness that could destroy a soldier.

See, loving Rachel made me fail my mission. And when I failed my mission, I was ashamed. Ashamed that I'd been weak enough to fall in love with Rachel Berrisford. But I still loved her anyway. It just became a ruthless cycle of emotional entanglements.

I was so ashamed of my love, that after a while, I just let Manticore erase her out of me. Hoping that they would somehow fix me. Make me invulnerable again, fix the chink in my armor. Not make me weak and hurt like that again.

Torture away Ben. Torture away Rachel. Make me who I used to be.

But like I said, it was all about perspective.

Because these days, I march to a different drum. Sing a different tune. These days, I don't think love is such a crock after all. Fact is, love might actually be the best kind of emotion there is. It's the best thing that I could ever do or give to anyone, and it only costs…well, me.

I didn't get it at first. Why X5-599, Zack, had given his heart to Max. From Manticore's perspective, it was a foolish sacrifice. Zack had been the stronger, better soldier. He had been the more viable candidate for reindoctrination. Personally, when I read his file, I thought he had been biggest damned fool there was.

But now, I'd probably salute the guy if I ever saw him again. Pat him on the back and tell him I thought he was probably one of the bravest guys out there.

Because now, I realize that it takes all kinds of courage and every shade in the spectrum of love to pull that trigger on yourself. Just for the slight chance that you could save the one you love. That kind of courage, you just can't pull out of your ass for something that you didn't love. That kind of courage can only be from love.

And now I understand how Max found the strength to kill Ben. I think I never really understood why Ben had to ask Max to kill him. Not until I understood love. And it was that love that made Max do what she did. Because Ben would have suffered, I know he would. They would have placed him in Psy Ops, and they would have destroyed him. He would never have gotten better, only worse. And I think they both knew that. And I know that Ben had asked the right person to finish the job.

It takes a different kind of strength to accept the burden of the guilt that she carries around everyday. It's a special kind of strength that lets you look at that face everyday and not fall into pieces. The kind that lets her keep me around and learn to look past our identical faces. Only knowing that you did the right thing for someone you loved lets you be that strong.

Now, I understand why Original Cindy, Sketchy, and even good 'ol Normal, had stood on our side of the fence a couple months back when the whole world was against us. The easy thing for them to do had been to just deny ever knowing us. They lost everything because of us. Normal lost Jam Pony. O.C. and Sketch lost their jobs, their apartments, and most of their friends. But they stood by us. Because they loved us. Mostly, Max, I think, but hell, I'm sure Normal loved me, at least.

But the bottom line was, they loved us enough to have faith in us. To believe that we weren't monsters and that we would do the right thing. Only love could make you believe in someone so hard it was enough to let everything else go. To believe in the intangible and let go of things more tangible.

And finally, I see clearly why Logan had held on to Max and their love for so long despite all the odds.

But most of all, I understand how he finally let go.

See, love does this thing with your pride…sorta makes it inconsequential. When Logan let go, it never meant that he stopped loving Max, but that he knew someone else could love her better. Only love could ever let you bare your soul to ten shades of vulnerability, to lower your pride, to finally just let go when you knew that you weren't the one.

Yeah. Only love could ever make you let go of that one person who was...everything.

See, I learned that in the darkest, most terrifying moments of the fight for our freedom, in the midst of gunfire from the National Guard, or in shackles in the basement of White's compound, or in the ICU of a hospital, I didn't think about how angry I was at the people shooting at me, or how I was gonna rip White from limb to limb (okay, I thought about this for a brief moment), or how I was gonna probably die.

I thought about love.

How it didn't make me weak, but stronger. How it made Max, fallen to her knees, head bowed down under the weight of responsibility and pain, still manage to find the strength to stand back up and fight. How, in fact, she had reached for a gun, even when she had vowed never to fire one, just so she could fight for her people. How she had stood in the line of fire for the people she loved.

Or how transgenic couples all around me would reach out to each other almost subconsciously for comfort. How they would try to make the other laugh and forget about everything else. How it made Joshua and everyone else fight back the tears as they buried their fellow soldiers so that they could somehow reassure each other and keep hope alive for others.

Y'know, for people made in labs and never exposed to it, love came pretty easily to us.

For the longest time, I was terrified of the how weak love was gonna make me. But now, I know. Love didn't make you weak. It made you stronger than you really were. Like me, getting over my fear of loving someone enough to say it out loud

I love Max. I think I always loved her, I don't know for sure. I know that I will always love her, though.

So, I reached out across the bed and wrapped my arm around her warm waist, pulling her to me. I settled my head just at the crook of her neck, my breath tickling her ear, and I say it out loud.

"Max, I love you."

And she turned to me, all warm and golden, eyes shining. "I know," she whispered and leaned up to kiss me.

Yeah, she loves me, too.

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A/N2: I hope you've enjoyed this. I swear, I'm working on the next chapter of Speed Dial!...and the others.