Alec sat down beside Max on the cold outer skin of the Space Needle. A salt scented breeze from the ocean pulled and toyed with her long, loose locks.
"Hey, didn't see you at Joshua's for supper. What's up?" Alec asked casually. He handed her a purloined beer from Logan's as he settled down. They both twisted off the caps and took a long drink.
"Tough day. I had to give the sex talk to one of the younger ones when they walked in on a couple gettin' busy. Then I had to give the couple a talk about appropriate places to have sex." Max shook her head in disgust.
"Heat?" Alec grinned behind his beer bottle.
She wrinkled up her nose. "I wish. They were just horny."
"Happens to the best of us, Maxie," her SIC teased.
"Whatever," she tossed back, afraid that anything else would be an opening for a double entendre.
"I'll drop by Joshua's first thing tomorrow, smooth things over." She loved the big dogman like a brother but his exuberance didn't allow for much decompression after a hard day.
"Wish I didn't have to go back to my apartment either. Trixie's been knockin' boots with Peets for three days straight. We have got to get ahold of some Heat suppression hormones soon." Alec set his half-empty beer bottle down and leaned his forehead against his raised knees. "I haven't slept all night long in soooo long," he whined.
"Aww, poor baby. Lean over and lay on Max's lap." She patted her thigh as she spoke in her best baby talk voice.
"Don't mind if I do." Alec let himself fall toward her, twisting so that he lay on his back, looking up at her. The cheesy grin that had been forming on his face wilted when he saw the shock on Max's. She quickly scrambled out from beneath him and to her feet. She headed for the broken windows of the observation deck without a word.
"Damn!" Alec hissed, more from Max's reaction than from his head thumping cold metal. He rolled to his feet easily and took off after her.
"Max! Come back!" he called, confused at her actions.
When Alec caught up to her Max sat astride her Ninja, face in her hands.
"Max?" he spoke softly as he approached. Her hair hid her face but not the sound of a sniff and a shuddered breath. "Are you okay?" he asked gently.
"Yeah, I'm fine. You just surprised me is all." She shrugged before turning to face him. Pain disappeared before his eyes as she slipped it behind a mask.
"How?" She'd been looking right at him when he'd leaned in for the fall. If he'd startled her she would have slugged him one or verbally fussed at him. Alec thought back to their first meeting; the first time she'd seen his face.
"Is this about Ben?" He stepped closer, coming around to face her. As he studied her pain seeped into her dark eyes.
"It was a flashback. You looked up at me and I saw his face just before I …" She turned away, unable to meet Alec's gaze.
"Ah, Max, I'm sorry." He pushed a strand of her hair away from her face, tucking it behind her ear.
"You don't have anything to be sorry for. You're not him; not Ben, not my brother." She looked up at him, soul deep sadness in her face. The remnants of a tear glistened in the glow of a nearby street light.
I wish I were something that'd make you feel better, he thought silently.
"We all have our ghosts, Max. You have Ben and I have Rachel." He tilted his head and gave her a rueful smile.
"They sure have crappy timing," she frowned as Alec slipped his arm around her shoulder.
"I totally agree," he said with a gentle squeeze.
"C'mon, let's go liberate some more of Logan's beer," he suggested as he rocked Max back and forth.
"Sounds good. Too bad he doesn't have a keg." Both transgenics laugh, the ghosts dispelled.
FIN