TITLE: Towering Inferno

AUTHOR: brihana25

SEASON: Two (AU set between Dawg Day Afternoon and She Ain't Heavy)

PAIRING: none

SUMMARY: He'd never believed they'd save the world, and he'd given up hope of saving himself, but maybe, just maybe, he could save the people who mattered to him. Even if they didn't want him to. Even if they hated him. And even if they wouldn't tell him what he'd done wrong before the world burned down around them.

DISCLAIMER: Dark Angel, its characters and situations, are copyright James Cameron, Charles H. Eglee and 20th Century Fox Film Corporation. No infringement on, or challenge to, their status is intended. This piece of fiction was written strictly for the entertainment of other fans, and I am gaining no form of compensation for it.

MORE DISCLAIMERS: This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or actual places and locations, is purely coincidental.

AUTHOR'S NOTES: This was originally written for the 2011 Dark Angel Big Bang, but just before my posting date, my computer ate the full final version. I still had my first draft, and I remembered the way the story had ended up going, but I was so frustrated that I'd lost it that I just put it down and never picked it back up. I felt like a complete failure. hsapiens had even made some phenomenal art for it – a cover, dividers, icons, a header – but I just couldn't do it. I couldn't make myself rewrite it.

Now, spurred in part by my finally finishing my first NCIS long fic and pushed by a desire to share this story – the one that I alone had seen before it vanished – I'm going to finish it. I'm starting with my original very (very) rough draft, and I'm editing, expanding and revising as I go. As usual, I can make no promises about length between updates. But I can promise you that I will finish it.

I've promised myself, after all.

WARNINGS: minor language

Chapter One

He'd never believed that they were going to save the world, but he'd been willing to play along. When things started going bad, he'd comforted himself with the false hope that they might be able to make a difference in Seattle. But with the way their luck had been running for the past few weeks, he'd let go of all pretense of believing anything. He was having a hard enough time just convincing himself that maybe they might be able to save themselves.

No, that wasn't right. It wasn't the way their luck had been running; it was that their luck was running out. The days of being unknown, unfeared, and unthreatened were over. Transgenics were quite literally the talk of the town, and not a day went by that there weren't at least three stories about the freaks and mutants in the news somewhere. The media had latched on to Annie Fisher's death so fiercely that they were running retrospectives and memorial broadcasts about her every other day. Joshua's picture had been on the front page of every newspaper in the country. Stories about monsters that could pass for human, like the girl who had helped "The Wolfman" escape, were starting to spread.

They'd been exposed, compromised, brought to the attention of the world-at-large. They were being hunted and killed in the streets. They'd lost almost everything, and they were on the verge of losing even more. And what had they gained?

"A big, fat nothing."

"I wouldn't go that far." Logan looked back at Alec across his shoulder as they exited the elevator and crossed the foyer to his penthouse apartment. "It may not have been the most productive mission ever, but it wasn't a complete loss."

Alec followed Logan through the door, taking off his leather jacket as he went. He crossed the living room, tossed the jacket on the couch, and then moved to stand in front of the bank of windows that dominated the front wall of the apartment. He crossed his arms as he stared out at Seattle's moonlit skyline. He hadn't even been thinking about the mission they'd just returned from, but now that Logan had brought it up, he could see how their recent failure might have contributed to his thoughts of hopelessness.

"I'd hate to see what you consider a complete loss then, buddy. Because we didn't get jack."

"We got a lot of valuable information."

Logan's voice sounded funny, shorter and more abrupt than usual, and that was how he'd sounded all night. Come to think of it, that's how he'd sounded for a few weeks. Since the night Annie died, to be exact.

Alec was no expert on human behavior, but he knew enough to realize that something was wrong.

"If we put what we got tonight together with what Matt Sung already has, we'll probably have enough to get an arrest, at least, if not a conviction."

"But there wasn't anything there." Alec was tired, and he didn't care if his voice sounded it. He turned away from the window, walked over to the couch, and sat down. "No stolen prescriptions, no suspicious records, no late-night shipments coming or going." As he talked, he ticked off each item on his fingers. "No money, no paper trail, no guns, no ammunition. Nothing."

"No proof of legitimacy, either," Logan pointed out.

"Since when do pharmaceutical companies need to prove that they're legit?" Alec asked. "I thought it was our job to prove they're not. Isn't that why we were sneaking around out there? Trying to find something we could use to prove they're the bad guys?"

Logan sighed and sat down in his desk chair. "We did a good thing tonight," he said. "You'll see that in time."

"Yeah." Alec wanted it to be sarcastic, but he was too apathetic to make it convincing. He started playing with the zipper of the jacket that lay on the couch next to him. "I'm sure I will."

Logan turned away from him and focused on firing his computer system up.

Alec glanced up and studied Logan from across the room. Normally, Logan would be talking his ear off, trying to convince him that they were making the world safe for humans and Transgenics alike, giving him some big speech about Truth, Justice, and the American Way, expounding on all the great things the scraps of useless information they'd brought back would do. But instead, he was sitting silently at his desk, with his shoulders up around his ears and tension radiating off of him like heat from a fire.

Something was wrong with Logan, all right. And even though he had no idea what it was, Alec couldn't help feeling that whatever it was, he was the cause of it. He sighed and looked back down at the zipper as he replayed the night in his mind, trying to figure out just what he'd done to piss him off.

It was supposed to be a recon and, if necessary, minor assault on the manufacturing center and warehouse for what Logan suspected was an illegal prescription drug smuggling ring. Logan's informant had led him to believe that there were stockpiles of all manner of strictly regulated narcotics and medicine - painkillers, anesthetics, and human growth hormones just to name a few. There was also supposed to be a large amount of cash on the what they were told would be a heavily-guarded premises.

But there was nothing. There was a moderately stocked warehouse filled with crates which bore shipping labels and bar codes that all, according to Logan's own scanner, checked out as legitimate, above-board shipments from the manufacturers to the warehouse's address. There was no proof that they'd come from – or were intended to go to – anywhere else.

There were also no employees present on the grounds, no guards of any kind, and no cash anywhere to be found. They'd managed to dig out a few questionably worded contracts, but that didn't help their case much. MediTech claimed to be a real pharmaceutical distributor, and nothing they'd found had contradicted that.

They'd taken pictures of everything in the safe and almost everything in the filing cabinets. Logan was going to print them out and collate them, and then sift through them with a fine-toothed comb. It was going to take a lot more luck than they'd had in a while to come up with any evidence worth taking to Matt Sung.

Alec doubted that the results would be worth it.

Then again, he was starting to doubt almost everything about what the three of them did together, up to and including whether or not he would keep doing it. He'd felt like an outsider from the moment he realized that he'd somehow managed to become one of Eyes Only's operatives. After a few successful missions and a few nights spent relaxing at Crash, that feeling had started to fade, but lately, it seemed to have returned. With a vengeance.

He and Max had been arguing almost all night, and that was a situation that was becoming far too commonplace for his liking. She'd finally told him about Ben, so he understood why being around him upset her so much. And he'd tried to avoid doing or saying things that he thought would upset her. He'd been putting actual, sincere effort into not being his usual obnoxious and irritating self, but it didn't seem to be working.

If anything, she was angrier at him than she'd been in months. So when she'd said that she was going to swing by Joshua's instead of going straight back to the apartment with them, he hadn't argued. To be honest, he'd felt no small sense of relief to be getting a break from her.

That had lasted until she sped off on her bike, and he realized that he was going to be riding back to Fogle Towers in Logan's car, and Logan was just as pissed at him – for whatever he'd done without knowing he'd done it – as Max was. To say the least, the atmosphere in the car had been uncomfortable. And now they were stuck together in the apartment, still not really speaking to each other.

"Hand me the camera." Logan's voice pulled his attention back to the present. "I need to get started printing those pictures."

Alec stared at his back blankly. "I don't have the camera."

"Yes, you do," Logan argued. He spun around in his chair. "I gave it to you before we got in the car."

"No, you didn't," Alec argued right back. "You sure you didn't give it to Max?"

"Yes, I'm sure I didn't give it to Max. I knew she wasn't coming back with us, and I wanted to get started printing before she gets here. You know how she gets when she's with Joshua. Who knows when she'll make it back?"

Alec shrugged.

"I gave it to you."

Alec shook his head. "Photographic memory, Logan." He tapped his finger against his temple. "You did not give it to me."

Logan wrinkled his forehead in concentration. Alec could see it in his eyes and on his face, watched him run through his memories and sort out which went where. Then he sighed.

"It's in the back seat," he said. "Probably on the floorboard."

Alec nodded. Logan's next question was obvious, so he thought he'd save him the trouble of asking it.

"You want me to go get it?"

Logan rolled his eyes as he turned back to his computer. "Well, unless you think I should hook your brain up to my computer and download your 'photographic memory,' yes. Probably."

Alec lowered his eyebrows and shook his head.

"No need to be a bitch about it," he finally said as he pushed himself to his feet. "I'll run down and get it."

"Good."

Alec picked up his jacket. He looked down at it, then out the window again. He didn't like the way Logan was acting. He had half a mind to head down to the garage and just keep walking. Go home. Get on his bike and take off. Leave Logan Cale and Eyes Only and Max Guevara in his rearview mirror and just leave. Just be done. But for some reason he couldn't explain, he knew he could never do it.

Since he couldn't run away from it, maybe he should try to fix it. He ran his hand through his hair and turned back around.

"Logan, man, I'm getting a vibe from you. Have I done something wrong? Something to piss you off?"

Logan just snorted, brought up his file window on his computer and started typing. "Don't pretend you don't know."

Alec blinked at the man's back. How could he pretend he didn't know something he didn't know? And if Logan wouldn't tell him what it was, how was he supposed to know if he knew? Why were humans so damn confusing?

"But, I really don't ..."

"Just go get the camera," Logan said dismissively. "I don't want to talk about this right now."

Alec held his hand up in surrender. "Fine. Whatever."

He tossed his jacket over his shoulder and headed for the elevator. It opened, he stepped inside, and turned back around to hit the button for the garage. As the doors slid closed, he could see Logan, still at his desk, glaring daggers at him across the room.

Alec shook his head and closed his eyes.

He really didn't understand humans.

"You know," Logan said to himself. He turned back to his computer and pounded on the keys angrily. "How could you not know? Of course you know."

Alec knew why he was mad at him. Who wouldn't be mad at the guy who'd stolen the woman he loved right out from under him?

He'd tried, for Max's sake, to let it go. He'd tried to convince himself that Alec could protect her, that they were literally made for each other, that Max was happy and that was what really mattered. But he couldn't do it. He and Alec had never been close, but they'd at least been able to call each other friend. They'd at least had each other's backs. But no more. No matter how hard Logan tried, he just couldn't forgive Alec for what he'd done.

"Just couldn't wait, could you? Didn't give a damn about me, or her, or anybody else. You wanted her, so you took her, and you want to pretend that you don't know."

Alec knew exactly how Logan felt about Max, knew how much he loved her, and he'd moved in on her anyway. And not just harmless flirting, no, a full-blown relationship that they'd been carrying on behind his back for who-knew-how long.

"Of course you know."

So why did the look on his face say he didn't?

Alec tipped his head back and closed his eyes. He'd never been big on understanding human emotions, even though it was in his dossier at Manticore as one of his specialties. He'd learned to manipulate them, yes, but that wasn't hard. He'd learned to interpret the ones on the surface and work them to his advantage, but only when it was required by Manticore. He'd never seen a point in placating them, or in trying to judge their moods or the reasoning behind the things they did. To him, humans were just another curiosity, to be studied only if doing so would be beneficial to him personally or to the goals of his mission.

He was damn good at getting humans to do what he wanted them to do, but he was terrible at reading how they felt and understanding why they felt that way.

"What do I know?" he asked himself. "What did I do?"

He knew Logan was pissed at him. That much was painfully obvious. He didn't need to be an expert in human emotions to see that.

But it had also seemed, as the mission and the night had gone on, that he was mad at Max, too. And Logan had plainly said that Alec should have known why he was angry. But his genius-level IQ and photographic memory weren't doing him any good, because he had absolutely no idea what Logan could possibly be so upset about.

No, the mission hadn't gone well at all, but that wasn't his fault. And hadn't Logan just been defending its accomplishments not five minutes earlier? Telling him that it would all be worth it, that the information they'd gotten would be put to good use shutting down a ring of illegal drug smugglers? And if Logan had been mad at him before the mission, about something that had nothing to do with it, he wouldn't have taken him along in the first place, would he? After all, Logan and Max had managed just fine for a year together before Alec came along.

"Don't need me," he muttered. "Never have."

He thought back over the past several weeks, from a time when Logan still tolerated him to the first time he'd noticed that had changed. Everything he'd done, everything he'd said, everything he'd been part of. That night at Crash, the night Logan got sick, everything had been normal. Alec had been the one who caught him when he fell, the one who stayed by his side, touching his face and chest to check his breathing and heartbeat, talking to him to keep him alert and conscious. Max had called him, asked him to come to the hospital … so things had obviously still been okay then. They wouldn't have wanted him there if they hated him, would they? He'd never made it, of course, but that wasn't his fault and Logan understood that.

"That's not it. Logan knows about Ben. He knows I'm no psycho murderer."

Then Annie happened.

That was when Logan started giving him the cold shoulder, he realized. They'd spent the whole day together, trying to get Max, Joshua and Annie out of the sewer safe and in one piece. Max and Joshua made it; Annie didn't. Logan hadn't talked to him much that day, and the ride back to Joshua's place had been downright uncomfortable. He'd commented on it at the time, asking Max what Logan's problem was.

She hadn't answered him.

At the time, he'd chalked it up to Logan being worried about Max. They'd been having problems before that, he knew. Max had been refusing to talk to Logan, and Logan had to do a video hack just to reach out to her. But looking back on it, he could see that it was more than that. Logan had been irritated when he'd called him and found out they were together, even though he'd called him in the first place, which meant he'd thought they'd be together anyway. So whatever was going on had been going on for at least a week. And he was just picking up on it?

"Face it, Alec. You aren't bad at human emotions. You suck at them."

Even more confusing to Alec than Logan's anger, though, was how worried he was about it. They worked together, looked out for each other, but in the end, Logan was just another human, just another Ordinary. They got upset about the dumbest things, and he had no doubt that whatever had Logan so mad was just as dumb.

Why did it bother him that the man was mad at him? It shouldn't have. Three months earlier, it wouldn't have. He'd shrugged off a lot of things that had happened to Logan, or complaints that Logan had about him, in the past eight months. He'd been doing it that long, why couldn't he do it anymore?

Was this what Max had meant when she told him that the more time he spent on the outside, the more human he'd feel? The more protective he'd be of the Ordinaries around him, no matter what?

If it was, he wasn't sure he liked it. In fact, he was pretty damn sure he didn't.

One thing he did know was that before the night was over, he was going to find out exactly what the hell was wrong with Logan, and exactly what he'd done to cause it. And he'd probably even try to make amends for it, if possible.

His decision made, he sighed, folded his arms across his chest and settled back to lean against the wall of the elevator.

He'd just passed the seventeenth floor when he heard a distant sound from far beneath him. He wondered briefly about it, about how loud it would had to have been to be heard from that far away. The elevator shook and rumbled, then slammed to a stop.

"What the hell?"

Alec grabbed the handrail and pulled himself up from the floor.

Then the alarm started screaming and the lights went out.