Disclaimer: I own it. Everything. The entire world. And I make lots and lots of money. And I write here for… fun? No, that can't be right. Anyway. Here's the beginning of something. The song is "Sorry About That" by Alkaline Trio. Tell me what you think.

It hasn't been that long,

Since we drank to the sunset

Until it was gone.

Alec opened the curtain and turned on the shower. He waited, as if by some miracle, the water would turn hot. Once satisfied that the brilliance that was Dix still hadn't connected the hot water heaters, he stepped under the frigid water. Really it was good that the water was cold. Warm water lends itself to fantasies and right now he needed all the reality he could get. Last night. Last night had been the best night of his life. And today would be the worst day.

Many times in the past he'd considered himself to have had the worst day. The day three of his unit mates died when he was eight. 839 seized to death before roll call, 271 drowned in the tank, and 547 failed live ordinance drills. The first morning he woke up in Psy-Ops after the escape in '09 was another of his worst days. He would never forget Colonel Lydecker's ominous "Mornin' son," as he came to, strapped to a metal gurney. Then there was the morning after his first assignment, "assassination" Max would've called it. He smiled. Max always did know how to send a giant fuck you to Manticore, him, well anybody really. Giant fuck you's were somewhat of a specialty with Max. Which led him right up to the issue of the day.

"Damnit!" Alec cringed, he couldn't even mentally get through the list of worst days of his life without Max somehow interfering with his thoughts. She was everywhere. She was his first thought, his first concern. When the siege began, when he and Max were elected to lead, he had ordered all the transgenics to report to their units. He had told the section heads, Mole, Joshua, Kylie, Doc, Gem, Dix and Duck, to gather a detailed list of supplies needed and hand it in by morning. Then he had discretely called over three X6s and requested they scour Terminal City for a couch of some sort and bring it to the roof. Max might as well be comfortable for her nighttime thinking sessions. And maybe he'd be allowed to join her. Maybe.

And he was allowed to join her. Now after months of the siege they met on the roof almost every night. Sometimes they went to the roof to discuss the day, to plan a heist, gossip about the other residents of TC or just be silent together. The first time one of their own died on a heist she had cried and he had held her in his arms. She felt so good there. Max fit into his arms perfectly, her head against his shoulder, her cheek against his neck. They fit like lock and key. However that was something she didn't recognize, didn't see, and didn't want to. She was not his. But she was. He knew it. He had always known it. She did not. Never would.

Last night she had been upset and unhappy. Alec simply couldn't help himself. He tried to cheer her up. He brought beer to the rooftop. He had sat beside her and she had leaned into his touch. He offered her a beer and they clinked glasses, "to us" he said.

"Yeah," she agreed, "they just can't keep a good transgenic down. To us!" She had smiled at him then. Mission accomplished. They drank until long after the sun had set and well into the darkness.

And down with it went our pain and fear,

As we slowly broke contact more and more

With every beer.

Max woke up feeling relaxed, rested even. Max never woke up relaxed, she woke up suddenly, alert, muscles tense and ready for action. If she had known Alec was the magic ingredient to a good night's sleep, she might have… Alec? She looked around in a momentary fit of panic. Alec wasn't here. She was disturbed by the regret that statement brought. Max had no choice but to follow the thought through to it's natural conclusion. Alec had left. Alec had left her. Sleeping. On the couch . Naked. She was lying on the couch on the roof. Starkers. After …

"Damnit!" Max yelled. She was not up for this. Really she wasn't. There was no excuse for her actions. None whatsoever. She had spent the night with Alec. It wasn't even the sex part that had her panicked and angry, it was the rest of it. The talking. The intimacy. The whole thing really and it had her freaked out, but not as much as the fact that Alec had left.

Max thought of last night. He had brought beer. She had been on the roof upset and brooding and he had come to help. The roof had become unofficially their place. It was the best they could do seeing as since the siege had begun the Space Needle was effectively off-limits. It was where they would go to think individually or together. It was where they would comfort each other. But last night… last night was different. Last night they had drank to a point where if they had been human it could possibly have been fatal. They were not human, so they lived to tell the tale, in vivid detail seeing as they were hardly intoxicated. The alcohol was unimportant; it was the freedom of thought, freedom of speech even that had crossed a line somewhere. Each drink Max took, the more she shared with him. Her childhood before and after the escape, the confusion surrounding Logan and the desire to be "normal", even her feelings about TC and the other transgenics poured out of her as if there would be no tomorrow. She remembered he had done the same. Alec had spilled his guts. He told her he was afraid of spiders. Macho, alpha, ladies' man Alec was afraid of spiders.

She felt close to him, emotionally and intimately close to him in a way that she had never felt with another soul. He knew pretty much all there was to know about her. And she had woken up alone.