DISCLAIMER: DA not mine, only borrowed. No profit made; only return is reviews.

A/N: A second dabble into S2, this one falling in between Bag 'Em and Proof of Purchase. This should be safe for all ships, unless you can't go with the relationship that existed between Max and Logan in early S2 canon, and the characters as then developed on the show. Many thanks to those who read; any and all opinions or thoughts are welcomed in reviews! I've only tried writing Alec once before so feel free to set me straight...

For Annie, who ordered some Logan-Alec fic for her birthday. Hope this one works and this year is a good one!

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OUT OF THE MOUTHS OF BABES

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Fogle Towers. Penthouse. Late afternoon.

He'd forgotten what it was like to have people dropping in on him, literally, not only without knocking, but without using the front door, preferring their own, private entrances though windows and skylights. In the sanity-rocking events of the past week – from Max's sudden appearance in his home, confirming that his belief in her survival wasn't simply his crazed, delusional denial, to their hungry, desperate kiss which within moments left him gasping for air and grasping for life, to the soul-rending knowledge that Max was within reach and that now her reach would mean his death, to the destruction of Manticore's facility and the scattering of dozens, maybe even hundreds, of their creations on the streets of Seattle and in the surrounding countryside – immediate events had held his thoughts, resulting his non-stop efforts in these following days to find answers to what remained of Manticore, to find what happened to its inmates ... to find a cure for the virus Max carried.

So at the soft, familiar sounds of company arriving overhead he was briefly reminded of happier times, before the insanity started, when he and Max were so close, finally, to coming together. He made a promise to himself to remember the good and to have hope, to remember the miracle that she had survived what seemed to be certain death and if that miracle had been granted him, there had to be more in store...

But miracles notwithstanding, it didn't sound like Max this time; clearly, unlike Zack, it was someone who didn't mind being overheard as he came in – and in moments, Logan saw before him the cheeky, good looking assassin who'd appeared in his home the previous week. Since that time, at least, Logan had learned that this particular X5, whom Max had called Alec, had helped out with the squad of younger kids Max found the previous day, and that he'd even helped Max escape from Manticore. He'd also learned that she didn't fully trust him. Given the events of the past few days, any misgivings Max had for another X5 made him cautious, certainly – and that didn't even begin to address the fact that Alec had been sent there to take him back to Manticore because of his hacks, even kill him, if necessary...

"Hey," the man grinned affably, as if Logan had been expecting him.

"Hey." Logan returned. "'Alec' – right?"

There was only the barest hesitation before he responded. "Right." The hazel eyes flickered down and back briefly as he took in Logan, at the moment in his wheelchair and without the exo, and Alec smiled engagingly. "Catch you at a bad time?"

"No..." Logan tried, not sure what was coming. Alec was certainly less grim than Zack, even seemed as if he could be downright charming. Maybe it was part of not being the CO– it certainly couldn't be his adolescent years spent at Manticore. But whatever it was in Zack that raised Logan's hackles, he seemed to be having the same reaction to Alec. Some sort of jealousy, maybe? Maybe the fear that these supermen would size him up and, given all that they could be, find him lacking...

...or that Max would...

With a deep breath, steeling himself to be hospitable for Max's sake, Logan nodded toward the several computer components he'd taken apart to rebuild, and explained, "just trying to upgrade my rig with some scavenged parts."

"You want parts, we ought to see what's left out there at the facility," Alec leaned easily against the computer table, much as Max had done on so many visits. "Of course, given the explosions, and the fire ... I imagine most of the good stuff has melted into one huge, metal lump..."

Logan glanced up at the lounging form next to him. "If you were looking for Max," he tried, seeing if Alec would tell him the reason for his visit, "she's not here."

"I know. I thought I'd come see you." He looked Logan over again and gestured with his chin toward him. "So what's up with this?" 'This' being the chair, Logan surmised. "Not the virus," Alec prompted, "because the antidote was supposed to clear it all up..."

"It did." Logan turned back to his work, not really wanting to have this discussion. No reason for Max to have mentioned his injury to Alec, he knew, but at the moment, he would have preferred if she had – that way, he might have avoided all this...

"So, this is a relapse?" Alec pressed. "You were fine the other day – or at least, before the virus worked on you. But I thought that passed," he repeated, his fishing obvious.

Logan sighed, then drew a breath to answer, his words clipped. "I was shot."

"When? Last night?" The X5's surprise was clear.

"No, last year." Logan answered, tersely. He wasn't sure why he had to have this conversation with the cocky, restless escapee, but he couldn't think of a good way to avoid it, short of just telling Alec to take a hike. He suddenly wondered if the man was still operative, still working for the agency that had to be resilient enough to have some rebound, even from being burned to the ground. And even if he wasn't consciously doing so – had Manticore programmed some sort of post-exposure plan into him? After all, Alec had been a part of Manticore's targeting Eyes Only, through Logan Cale, and maybe he even knew his identity as EO. How wise it was to admit to this man just how immobile he was, Logan couldn't know – but Alec's sudden appearance in his home to find him in the chair, the exo in the other room – it wasn't as if he could hide it for long.

Alec simply rolled his eyes. "And it just caught up with you today? Effective gunshot," he smirked.

Logan was losing patience. "Alec, was there something you wanted?"

"Oh. Yeah." He shifted with that careless, graceful ease Logan had seen in Max that came from the strength and agility of a world class ninja, a state of constant readiness Bling had once described as 'completely on guard while completely at rest.' Now, seeing an X5 who hadn't escaped, up close and personal, Logan found himself wondering how much was training and how much, genetics ... but Alec was continuing, "Max said you know the city, and would know where I could hole up for a few days until I find a place of my own. You know, nothin' fancy like this," he let his eyes sweep around the penthouse appreciatively, trying to be reasonable in his request but unable to avoid the twinge of sarcastic envy in his voice, "but maybe the basics like a roof ... plumbing ... a minimum of vermin or bugs, if at all possible..."

Logan suddenly relaxed: just another guy out on the street, then, lost his job, and evicted from his home? Quietly amused at the image, Logan nodded, "there's a safe house you could use, not too far from Max's place." He pulled a key from his desk drawer, scribbled an address on a nearby slip of scrap paper, and handed it to Alex. "It should be stocked with enough of the basics to tide you over for a week or so."

"Thanks." Alec nodded, with a wry grin. "Pretty good of you, given that just a few days ago I was here holding a gun on you."

Logan pursed his lips, and finally nodded, understanding that he'd just heard what was probably the most articulate apology the man would offer. "Well, I'm getting used to that where Manticore is concerned. Although it might be nice if you could help me restock the place before you go – you know, for the next transgenic who stops by needing a place to crash."

Alec nodded, but clearly was still curious about this Ordinary, and his first opportunity to interrogate one of the members of the fragile breed without fear of revealing his own secrets in the process. He nodded again toward Logan to ask, "so what's with the gunshot wound, anyway? I never heard of one that comes and goes. What is it, the pain is worse some days than others?"

"No," Logan's voice carried the strain on his patience as the topic was brought up again. "The bullet tore up my spinal cord, and I can't walk. I was up the other day because I have an exoskeleton that gets me walking again. Without it, I'm back in the chair." Explanation accomplished, something about Alec left him unable to resist adding a sarcastic dig. "Satisfied?"

"Exoskeleton, huh?" Alec mused, not the least bit daunted by Logan's stiff reply. "That was what all the whirring and creaking was, then..." He heard Logan grunt in response as he turned away from Alec and back again to the cables he'd been reconnecting between his monitors and the camera beside them when so abruptly interrupted. With a bored glance toward the collection of old and new computer equipment, Alec turned to look around the penthouse again, ambling off a few feet to get a better view of the place and the remaining pieces of art and other expensive pieces casually displayed. He could see the very faint lines of discoloration from light and dust where other pieces had been removed from the walls, or items of furniture moved or adjusted, noting that even the well-to-do had gotten squeezed by the Pulse. "D. O. D.?" he asked. Seeing Logan nod distractedly, Alec put two and two together and observed, "that must have set you back a few bills." When no further reply was forthcoming, he turned and looked in toward the kitchen, apparently still in perfect working order. "Hey, uh..." he began apologetically, "I haven't had anything to eat since yesterday. Any chance you got a spare sandwich or some leftovers, maybe?"

At that, Logan looked up; after a beat, his mouth quirked at the inevitability of the question. "Knock yourself out," he nodded toward the kitchen, and watched Alec disappear back around the corner. Within the next breath he heard his refrigerator being opened and an soft, appreciative whistle from his "guest." Logan snorted after him, "I don't suppose Manticore ever fixed that genetic fluke that makes all of you bottomless eating machines?"

"No, why would they?" Alec called back, without irony.

Logan considered, snorted softly to himself, then looked back to his work. "No reason," he murmured. There were several moments of sounds very familiar to him, and long missing, the somehow comforting sounds of a hungry X5 rooting through his larder. Maybe soon, again, it will be Max in there, instead, he let himself remember...

As with Max, the rooting soon stopped and in the next moment, Alec came back into the room, sandwich in hand, watching him work with only the mildest curiosity. With a casual breath, as if just making conversation about the weather or the latest Sonics game, Alec brought it up again. "So you're really paralyzed, huh?"

Logan tried, but couldn't help glancing at the transgenic, the perfect specimen overly interested in his own, sadly lacking abilities. He gritted his teeth and promised himself it wouldn't rankle him. "Yep," he noted, looking again to the computer in front of him.

"And it doesn't heal for you the way it would, for us..." Alec asked.

"Nope." Logan busied himself with opening the back to one of his hard drives in preparation to replace an ailing sound card, remembering to breathe evenly, fully aware that his visitor was considering him, looking him over as if he were an interesting new science project on display. I suppose for him, I am... Logan acknowledged, silently. Being reminded of his physical limitations by a good-looking superhero was bad enough; insult to injury was that it was in his own home after Alec had intruded, uninvited, and bummed room and board from him. He stifled a sigh, not wanting the younger man to see he'd gotten to him. Maybe he'll get bored and just go away, he hoped...

He didn't. But he was quiet for several moments, mulling him over, apparently. At least he was quiet, Logan reflected, as he continued his repairs.

"So, it can't be all that different for you though, right?"

That brought Logan's head up, his green eyes full of surprise. "What?"

"I mean ... from before you were shot. Not that much of a change."

Logan blinked his astonishment, seeing Alec was completely serious. "Alec..." He again felt some unreasonable irritation at the statement, given the genetically engineered, superior specimen pressing the issue. "My spinal cord was severed. And I presume you got even more basic medical training than Max, being at Manticore longer than she was, so you know what happens when you slice through ..."

"Yeah, yeah, I know what it does; and yeah, I guess that 'lack of walking' thing would be different. But..." Alec shrugged, casually. "It's not like you did more much more than walk ... I mean, you didn't have the speed and jumping ability and strength – all that stuff that they put in us..." He considered. "I just figured it wouldn't be all that much of a change, for you..."

The look of sheer disbelief coupled with bitter reflection on Logan's face finally got through, and raised a defensive thread in Alec, who blurted, "Look, I've never talked to an Ordinary before who knew..." He hesitated, swallowed his pride to apologize for verbalizing the slur. "Ouch. Sorry. To an... a... to someone not from Manticore," he corrected, "who knew the score on what we can do. You do, don't you?" At a terse, silent nod from Logan, Alec confirmed, "yeah, Max said you were the first person on the Outside she'd met who knew it all." He backed off slightly, aware that he might have inadvertently offended the man but needing his good will to provide some answers about the Outside that he still wanted to know. He shrugged again. "She also made me think that if I had questions, or needed to know something about ... things ... out here, that you'd be the man to ask."

Logan considered the X5 before him as his ire began to cool. Alec was like a someone from another culture dropped, largely tutored but not quite completely, in the middle of a foreign one. And, he considered, one raised with the certainty that he was rare, special and gifted, never taught that he ought to consider the feelings of his "lessers..."

...and in that regard – much like his Uncle Jonas and the rest of the local social set...

At the comparison, Logan suddenly relaxed again into a chuckle, surprising Alec. In response to Alec's last comment about Max, Logan returned, "I'm glad she thinks so." He looked back at the other man, and mused at the fact that Alec was probably as attractive to women as Max was to men. Manticore didn't scrimp on the window dressing, he allowed himself, and nodded, "I'm pretty well up to speed about what you and Max and the others in your series can do – not the specifics for each of you, of course, but in general, yeah."

Alec nodded, enthusiastic now. "Well, then, you get it, don't you? Why someone like me – Max, too, probably – would just assume your injury wouldn't be much of a change for you? I mean, hell, compared to what we can do, it's like you were already disabled, isn't it?"

Logan blinked.

"Well, isn't it?" Alec prodded, at the other's silence. "And whatever it was between you and Max that made you hit it off, it damn well wasn't Max falling for your brawny macho strength."

At that, Logan sat back, speechless. He looked up at the man's assured expression, opened his mouth to speak, reconsidered, and shut it again. And here he'd always thought it had been Bruno Anselmo's bullet that had emasculated him – this X5 informed him that, in Max's eyes, he wasn't all that manly to begin with...

"Max said that?" he finally managed. What else could she have said...?

"No; hell, I don't know that she's even thought about it. But it's pretty obvious, isn't it? She could have snapped your neck in a heartbeat. I don't care how strong or fit you were, now or at your best – then and now, the girl makes you look like a newborn kitten." At the flicker of self-consciousness Alec saw in the green eyes across from him, he added quickly, "hey, look, it's nothing personal – that's true for all Ordinar... I mean, all ... of you. Out here" he managed to modify, quickly. "You said you knew all about us, so this can't be news."

"No. You're right; it's not." Logan breathed. Seeing old news through the new eyes of the painfully candid, newly sprung X5, he suddenly realized why it might have been so easy for Max to accept him in the chair, to handle his injury: all her life beyond Manticore, she'd been surrounded by those with, from her perspective, physical limitations – she'd gone from being in a world full of other children like herself, far faster, smarter, stronger than any of the adults around them, and had fled into another, where even the strongest, ablest, best trained fighters were no match for her.

It was what she'd suggested, more than once; it was what he knew, logically. Yet it hadn't really clicked until Alec, with his blunt assessment borne of his unfamiliarity both with social nuance and the day to day "limitations" of mere mortals, said it so plainly. He'd always been, and always would be, disabled, as far as Max was concerned ... along with nearly every other person in her adopted, post-escape universe...

Alec saw that the man's thoughts were turning, his eyes focused on the space between them as he seemed to be sorting out some new dilemma. And after only a few more moments, he saw Logan's eyebrows raise, his brow clear slightly... and just about the last thing Alec had expected at that moment, from the man: a private, warming smile...

The smile of someone who believed he just might beat the odds. The smile of someone in love. The smile of the man who would wait for Max and track down a cure, with such single-minded purpose, he'd put all the X series to shame.

...It was going to be a long time before he'd get these Ordinaries figured out, Alec realized. But he started to suspect that it was a much larger, brighter, complex world Outside than anyone at Manticore had led him to believe...

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