Max was at Crash with Original Cindy and Alec when Logan paged her. She made her way to the bar and borrowed the phone. She dialed the 14-digit number she would remember kinetically if her eidetic memory ever failed her. She soon heard Logan's voice.
"Max, I know it's late, and it's storming, but can you come over? I have something really important to talk to you about."
Max's face fell with seriousness. "Is everything okay?"
Logan was quiet a moment. "It's not an emergency, but you might want to bring a friend."
"Okay, I'm on my way." Max hung up the phone. What was so important, but not an emergency, that she had to see him tonight?
Was he stuck somewhere and needed someone to help him? Is that why she needed to bring a friend? Because they couldn't touch? Or maybe he was going to send her on a quick mission and the kind of friend she needed to bring was one that could do more than the average friend could?
Max made her way back to the table. Alec saw her worried expression first. "Hey, what's up? Everything okay?"
She looked for Original Cindy, who turned out to be halfway across the room talking to a new honey for whom she had some plans. "Um," she said to Alec. She felt like she was about to regret this. "Hey, can I ask you a favor? I know you don't like the guy, but will you go with me to Logan's? He says he has something important to talk to me about and I'm supposed to 'bring a friend', whatever that means."
"He didn't say why?" Alec wondered aloud. Probably wanted to drop the news that he'd found the cure and they could finally be together, in which case, why would he want Max to bring a friend? And, Alec cracked a smile, realizing she'd just admitted he was her friend.
"No, he didn't say. Sounds kind of serious, but he says it's not an emergency. I'm thinking' he's about to send me on a two-man job. You in?"
"Yeah," Alec said, grabbing his jacket. Any action would probably be more fun than continually skunking these punks at pool.
Max and Alec waved bye to OC and headed up the stairs toward the exit.
At Logan's, Alec knocked on the door and he and Max waited for Logan to answer. When he did finally swing open the heavy door, he looked sullen, then surprised to see Alec.
The transgenics found themselves in Logan's living room, and Logan could barely find the words to speak. "Okay, well, I have something to tell you," he began.
"Yeah, what's up?" Max asked.
Logan looked to Alec, then back to Max, then back to Alec. "You mind giving us a minute?"
He'd traveled to Logan's with Max in the rain just to be asked to step outside for a moment. Or maybe he was about to drop the cure on Max and they'd need more than a minute. "No problem, should I wait outside, or?"
"I'll be right out," Max said to him. She returned her stare to Logan as Alec left. "What's going on? Is somebody dead or something?" she asked.
Alec paced the hallway as he waited for Max to leave or someone to invite him back in, or waited to hear sounds of a fight or a lack of fight, or something. Some indication of what was going on in there.
Moments later, Max tore open Logan's door and rushed past Alec to the elevator. She seemed really pissed off and stared straightforward, waiting for the chime to inform them the elevator had reached Logan's floor.
"Max, you okay?" he asked. He turned to Logan, who stood dumbstruck in his doorway.
"Max, come back so we can talk about this," Logan said.
"You know what? Screw you!" Max said, stepping into the elevator.
Alec slipped in before the doors shut and spent thirty seconds in completely uncomfortable silence, being ignored by Max. Did Logan just break up with her? he wondered. Or is it even possible to break up with someone who you're not really together with? Alec shook his head and practically chased Max out to her motorcycle.
"You mind driving?" she asked.
Okay, so it was bad news, Alec realized. Max handed him her keys and he mounted the motorcycle. In less than ten seconds she was situated behind him and ready to go. As he turned the ignition, she wrapped her arms around him and held on. "Am I taking you home?" he asked.
"No."
"Where do you want to go?"
Max didn't answer, so Alec started driving.
Max seemed to be squeezing him tighter than a passenger normally would. When he came to a red light, he felt her chest heave deeply against his back. She was really upset about whatever it is Logan told her. He could feel her face resting at his back and wondered what he should do. He continued driving.
Over an hour had passed when he was able to distinguish her breath from the motor's humming, and she had been doing quite a good job at hiding it, but now he knew. She was crying. She was trying to hold it all back and didn't want anyone to see her this way, which is why she couldn't go home and why she didn't want to go anywhere else.
Alec turned the bike around, deciding to take her to the only other place where she would be safe from the scrutiny of others. He took her to his apartment.
When they arrived, she seemed exhausted. They walked wordlessly to his front door, which he unlocked and swung inward. Max passed the threshold and slowed to a stop in the bathroom. She swung the door lightly, not enough to close it but enough to give her a little privacy.
Alec shut and locked the door behind him. He heard her heave again and in the sliver of the bathroom he could see her start to curl downward. He didn't want to crowd her, but he wasn't sure what to do.
"Max, what happened?" he asked softly, waiting several feet outside the bathroom.
Max tried to collect herself and mumbled her response. "Zack's dead." Somehow, saying it out loud made her feel worse. Even though there was nothing she could do about it, saying it out loud brought on a new wave of tears.
"Do you want me to leave you alone?" Alec asked. The situation was so hard to read. She had put a door between them, but had left the door open a crack. Was this her way of letting him in, but only a little bit?
Max didn't answer.
Wanting not to piss her off during this state, he tried to respect what her wishes might be, and left her alone in the bathroom. He sat himself against the wall opposite her, and waited. He wanted to be there for her just in case.
A couple hours had passed, and Max had gone through bouts of crying. Alec sat steadfastly outside the door, listening to her take air in, cry some of it out – sometimes gently, sometimes violently; he had heard her growl in anger, sob in grief, and eventually fall quiet. He stayed seated and felt his eyes close a little.
After all that Max and her unit had been through, they were a family, even if it was a family who didn't see one another very often. And after all the loss they had experienced, she had just lost her older brother, the leader of her unit, the person she would credit for her successful escape and who played a giant role in her survival.
A few more hours passed in utter silence. Finally, Alec heard her speaking.
"If you're out there, could you just listen?" she had asked. Alec was quiet. He was fairly certain she wasn't talking to him.
"I don't know if I believe in angels. That sort of thing was never really covered in my course-load. But if you are out there, could you just listen?" Max seemed to speak with a childlike sorrow as she continued. "Please take care of Zack. He spent his life taking care of others and he deserves to have someone look out for him for a change. He was kind to us, and he was kind to strangers. He always protected us, protected me. Can you please do what I couldn't?"
The last submission made her tear up again. Alec could tell the words were caught in her throat, and words caught in the throat meant one of two things: one, she was crying too hard to spend her oxygen on speaking, or two, she was feeling major guilt and it was causing her throat to feel tight. He wished he could help her – just go in there and help her.
At Manticore, he had taken some advanced courses on emotional subterfuge. Manticore had seen fit to make sure if any of their soldiers were in a situation where they needed to feign emotions to get the job done, they would be able to. It was basically an acting class. In his various missions, he had employed some of those techniques to gain access to some sensitive materials, but he had never really felt them before now. His heart ached with a helplessness he had not felt before. How could he help Max?
He sent a silent prayer to these angels to which Max was speaking. He asked them to stay close and help her with the tough situations in her life. He asked them to help her maintain a balance in her life, and if they could, to help her reach happiness. After being everyone else's angel, didn't she deserve it?
Max had sobbed herself to sleep. Must be pretty drained, Alec realized. After everything, after driving in the rain forever, she was probably soaked to the bone, but had spent the better part of the night crying her eyes out.
Alec stood up quietly and with some determination. He pushed lightly at the bathroom door and found Max curled up on the floor. He bent down to pick her up, and though the act of it had awakened her, she had let him. She rested her head at his chest as he carried her into his room and laid her gently on his bed.
Max said nothing as she rested her head on his pillow. Alec took a couple of steps toward the end of the bed and removed her shoes. Max turned over and faced the other direction. He pulled the comforter up, removed his own shoes and jacket, and lay down behind her, watching her back for any signs of distress.
"Alec?" she asked quietly, but it had sounded like a different question altogether.
Alec sat up on his elbow. When she said nothing else, he scooted forward on the bed and put his arm around her. Max inched backward until she could feel his heartbeat through her back.
Max soon fell asleep. Alec listened to the steady rhythm of her breathing, and feeling she would be okay, eventually nodded off, too.