A/N: Old ficlet post-season 2. I think I was originally going to continue this, but it'll have to be a one-off what-if now.

Disclaimer: Characters are not mine. Title from "Sweet Dreams" by Marilyn Manson.

Sweet dreams are made of these
Who am I to disagree?

It was like waking up from a particularly bad dream. At first, she felt slightly groggy, unsure of where she was or what was going on. Pieces of reality and the dream bled together in an indistinguishable vortex that left her blinking at the wall hopelessly.

And then. And then it all came flooding back in a rush that slammed the pieces of the puzzle together so abruptly that the aftershock was tangible.

Looking down at the gloved hand in hers, Max could only wonder at how she'd let reality slip away so easily. She'd always been a big believer in reality. Manticore hadn't exactly encouraged creative imagination. And yet, here she had let herself slip into a fantasy that could never be real.

She pulled away.

She pulled her hand, and her body, and her mind, away from the fabrications. Closed her ears to the stunned questions, turned, and walked away.

And, there, shrouded in the slight solace of her high place, Max felt her brain clear in a way that hadn't happened for months. It had nothing to do with the altitude.

"I know you like to live on the edge, but the mobs are a little much to be taking trips out of our new home base for smoggy air and a dilapidated view, don't'cha think, Maxie?"

Ignoring his question, but not his presence, Max queried, "You remember Mia?"

A small frown crossed Alec's face as he went to sit next to Max on the space needle, a position that they had occupied enough times before for it to be habit that they were only an inch or so apart. "I can't quite..."

"She was Psy-Ops."

And the spark of recognition almost clouded out the anger that settled over Alec's features. He offered a bitter smirk, "I never forget a face."

Tilting her head at him, Max shrugged, '"I'm taking that as a yes."

There was silence for a few tense moments. A flash of wind blew Max's hair up and back, away from her still mostly lasered off barcode. It felt like the world realigning, after a prolonged shift of tectonic plates.

Finally, it was Alec who spoke. "I don't like having my head messed with."

"Seems to be a common theme though..." Max's voice was teasing, but her eyes didn't mean it. They were still misted by dreams and half truths.

Shaking off his anger and shifting the subject, "You left some pretty confused Freedom Fighters back there. One who, I imagine, is enduring copious amounts of toxic radiation looking for you."

"And yet," Max liked to imagine that she could see stars beyond the perpetually gray skies of Seattle, "I'm out here."

Even for Max, this was more than a little cryptic, and definitely less soppy than he was coming to expect from her when Logan was brought up. "What, no tragic stories of doomed romance?"

He fully expected to be smacked.

Instead, Max shrugged. "Do I look like the romantic type to you?" Laughed, then sobered. "Mia... she did something to me. To me and Logan."

IYou two are going to have the best life together. You're so perfect for each other./I The voice echoed in her head, and it was so obvious now, Max didn't understand how she'd missed it.