Disclaimer: I own nothing. Nothing. I cross my fingers and wish...but still I have nothing. Damn.

Random one-shot. The first line is something I actually said tonight, and you know what they say about misery loving company.

"Happy fucking New Year." Alec said to himself, as he mockingly toasted no one with his whiskey.

"Well, that's not really in the spirit of the party." A familiar voice said quietly from his shoulder.

He looked over and was unsurprised to see Max sitting on the barstool beside him. She had a slightly worried look on her face, something that tugged at him, that she was worried about him. Opening his mouth, he quickly shut it again. Then he just shrugged.

She looked even more worried, and he guessed he understood why. Before, no matter how far down he was feeling, he'd always had a clever comeback for whatever she'd said. A shrug of silent defeat was just too out of character.

"You're not sick are you?" She demanded. "Because if you get me sick I'll so kick your ass." She tried and failed to sound truly angry. It ended up coming out a lot softer and concerned than she meant it to.

Alec just shook his head and turned away from her. "No, I'm not sick. Transgenics don't get sick after all." He took another drink from his glass. "Just go and enjoy the party."

She shook her head. "No." She didn't move an inch from her spot next to his elbow.

He gave her a half-hearted glare. "Why not? You should go back and have fun. After all, Logie boy's here and you've got your handy dandy gloves on."

Max's eyes narrowed and the way he seemed to grind out the last sentence between clenched teeth. "Seriously Alec, what's your problem tonight?"

He sighed, regretting being an ass, especially to her. "I just don't get what's the big deal about another crappy year."

"Crappy?" She tilted her head slightly. "Who says it's gonna be crappy?"

He sent a sideways glance at her. "Oh come on Max, it's not like I've anything but crappy years."

"This year wasn't that bad." She tried to tell him, but he cut her off before she could say any more.

"Let's review, shall we?" He turned so that he was facing her. "First time I met you I was supposed to get you pregnant so that my creators could have our child to play with. And then I was given the mission to give you the virus so that you even touching the man you loved would end in his death."

"I escaped Manticore only to see it get burned to the ground with people I knew locked inside. And after you'd saved them all, no thanks to me by the way, the government laid traps and slaughtered unarmed children with machine guns. Later I tried to kill you. And then you turn around and save my ass, costing you your own happiness once again."

"The rest of the year I spent trying to redeem myself in your eyes. But I kept screwing it up. And the up points were meaningless sex with random Ordinaries and attempting to drink myself into oblivion more than once. Only I discovered that I just felt worse after every emotionless screw, and that transgenics are incapable of getting drunk. Oh and let's not forget having to have you save my ass over and over again."

"And what was good about the years before this one? I got one of the two women I've ever loved killed, I spent more time than I'd care to think about in psy-ops and when I wasn't being 're-conditioned' I was out killing people that the government wanted dead. Woo hoo. Oh yeah, it sounds like I'm due for another fantastic year."

He stopped in his speech to give a defeated shrug and gulp the rest of his drink, while ordering another one from the bartender. He refused to meet her eyes, turning away from her once again.

Max grabbed his seat and turned it towards her, forcing him to face her. When he just turned his head away she grabbed his chin with one hand and made him meet her gaze.

"Oh come on Alec, it hasn't been that bad." He shot her a look and she sighed. "Okay, so it has. But that doesn't mean that this year will suck too."

She took a deep breath, her transgenic mind racing to figure out some sort of logical argument about how the New Year wasn't already doomed to failure. But instead her mind just kept getting stuck on particular part of his speech. And she desperately wanted to know what he'd meant by it, although she didn't want to think about why.

"One of the two women you've ever loved?" She repeated back. "Two?"

Alec groaned and gulped down half of his new drink. Of course she just had to focus on that damn slip of his. He didn't say anything more, more than aware that one slip up was usually followed by another when those gorgeous chocolate eyes were on him.

"Alec." Max said in her patented 'tell me now if you want to live' tone of voice of hers. "Who was the other one, and why won't you answer me?" He stayed silent. "Alec!"

"It's you okay!" He said louder than he'd intended, drawing a few stares from the bar patrons around them. "You're the only other woman I've ever been in love with." He told her in a quiet voice, defeat ringing in his voice as he reached for his drink again.

Max grabbed the drink before he could and pushed it away. "You were in love with me?" She asked in a confused/amazed/(hurt?) voice. "And you never told me?"

"Am." He corrected wearily. He figured since it was already out, that he might as well say it all. Better to get your ass handed to you for the truth rather than for a half-truth. "I am in love with you." He stole the drink back and finished it off. "Now can you just leave me alone in my 'I Hate New Years' misery? Cause it'd be easier trying to be the first transgenic to get drunk if you're not here stealing my dr…"

Max cut him off with a kiss. Alec wrapped his arms around her after one stunned moment and deepened the kiss. But eventually even transgenics need air, so they broke apart, breathing as heavily as if they'd just taken on an army of Familiars in hand to hand combat.

"I thought you hated me." Alec stuttered out, shocked. "Or thought of me as your brother."

"Isn't a girl allowed to change her mind?" Was all Max could think of to say. They stared at eachother for a long moment. And then they dove back into eachother's arms.

And even though nothing was solved or even thought out to the slightest degree... it was all right with the two of them. And for the first time, Alec believed that the New Year could actually not suck.

'Huh, that was certainly a new development,' was his last coherent thought that night.

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