Disclaimer: I don't own any Dark Angel characters.

Author's Notes: This was originally meant to be a much more drawn out fic, but it came along right when I stopped writing. I think it can stand decently as a one-shot, so that's what I'm posting it as, even though it's basically PWP now. If you're interested in how it was supposed to go, I can tell you that the plot twist would've been very similar to "Heat Activated Aftermath". Title is a homage to Babylon 5.

Summary: Post-DA. Two transgenics in particular find themselves in a tricky situation. "'Wait,' he says. Right. And just ignore the raging mob in our backyard. Sure thing."

Rated: M

Written: August 6, 2007. Revised: August 13th, 2013.

T minus 12

"'Wait,' he says. Right. And just ignore the raging mob in our backyard. Sure thing."

Alec was pacing. Back and forth; back and forth. Just as caged mentally as he was physically. And there was nothing he could do. Nothing any of them could do but wait.

Wait as wave after wave of Ordinaries surrounded their barricaded forces of Terminal City. So far, they hadn't been able to breach the significant defenses before the toxicity got to them. The first wave would fall back, allowing the next wave their attempt. It was, however, ongoing. And only a matter of time.

And they couldn't do anything. An entire city full of highly trained, highly skilled and physically perfect transgenic soldiers and they couldn't touch them. Waiting on a president that didn't care about any of this - more concerned with paperwork and bureaucracy than the freaks holed up in a toxic dumping ground.

Waiting on their best hope to end the war and get their little Freak Nation recognized. And one drop of Ordinary blood at Transgenic hands ended all that. So they waited, even though it went against every bone of their impulsive, action-orientated bodies.

Pacing the (suddenly small) room that housed the majority of all Freak Nation planning, Alec was still ranting, safe in the knowledge that the reinforced doors would keep this conversation between the room's occupants alone - transgenic hearing or no. "All I need is to be in the same room with him - his entourage wouldn't last five seconds. Problem solved."

Max hopped down from the table, scattering papers in her wake, and smirked at the cocky tone to his voice. "A military coup is probably not what we need right now."

"Yeah, but it'd be worth it to hear his neck pop." Murderer though he might've been, Alec didn't particularly enjoy assassinations. It came out mostly joking and just a touch wistful.

Max repressed a smile behind a disapproving glower because it was hardly a laughing matter. Still, she understood the feeling - the frustration. They needed to do something. She was going out of her skin, cooped up, dealing with paperwork and bureaucracy and negotiations. She'd thought the battle for recognition would be literal. Instead, it was all numbers and treaties and waiting. Oh, and trying not to kill or get killed by the vicious mob beating down their doors.

They'd been stuck in Terminal City for weeks now. Penned in. Edgy. Waiting.

The endless waiting.

Alec offered a tired shrug, "I know, I know. Didn't mean it. It's just-"

Moving faster than either of them expected, perhaps before her brain could catch up with her actions, Max kissed him.

It took a whole fifteen seconds before Alec's startled arms, half up in a gesture of violence against the president, came down around her frame. A good bit longer for him to pull away, startled. "What-?"

"I'm sick of waiting." And she kissed him again, wrapping her hands in his short hair and pulling him closer, before he could say something stupid and ruin it.

This time, his hands were far less hesitant.

Alec pulled her closer with a sharp motion, crushing ribs that wouldn't break in his steel grip. Max snapped her head back for a gasp, managing to unzip her jacket in that moment before his arms banded around her. Her breasts pressed against his chest - separated only by the thin spandex of her top and cotton of his shirt.

He made a sound that could have passed for a growl, and she bit his lip for the effort. A quick glance down and the wicked smirk on her lips drove them both back into the table.

Whatever papers had survived were unceremoniously shoved aside as Max swung up on the table, wrapping her legs in a vice-grip around Alec's waist, while his hands tangled in her hair, yanking firmly until her bare neck was exposed to his hungry kisses.

He wasn't dumb enough to ask her twice.

Max's own hands were busily traveling their bodies in an effort to divest them of as much clothing as possible, given their entwined position. She tried to push Alec back long enough to pull off his shirt, but he was having none of it - dragging her closer every time she attempted to inch back.

Already short patience wearing thin, Max clenched the fabric in her fists and tugged, the weak material easily ripping against the force of her strength.

Pausing his thorough perusal of her body for a second, Alec raised an eyebrow at his torn shirt, offering a fake pout, "You owe me a new shir-"

Her lips were more than effective at silencing him. Fleetingly, Max wondered why she hadn't done this earlier... but she didn't have time to delve into the subject, as her legs were being pried apart.

Before she knew it, her jeans had been shoved off, and her top was sharing the same fate as Alec's. Turnabout and all that.

And all at once, they were naked together. Pressed up against a desk that was more of a metal case than anything else, locked in a tiny room that was sweltering along with them, and still wrapped up in one another's arms.

Again, it was Max who made the first move, while Alec was still caught up admiring the sheer perfection of her naked form - even with its dark inking of tattoos. She pulled his head down until their foreheads were just touching, eyes centimeters apart, and something else crossed her face. Vulnerable, just for a moment. "Do you want me?"

"Maxie..." The strangled sound of her name said more than her coy whisper demanded, and it was all either of them needed to hear.

Again. "I'm sick of waiting." And she twined her legs back around him, dragging him closer, until his cock was just resting at her sex.

The shock of such intimate contact gave the room an almost electrical charge. Eyes locked, Alec slid one hand from her hair down her back to rest on her bottom, squeezed, and pushed in.

It was, perhaps, gentler than either were expecting. But then, neither of them had exactly been expecting this scenario at all. As Alec began to slide in and out of her, their lips found each other's, and Max pressed them closer, bodies aligned, breasts pressed tight against his firm chest.

They picked up the pace, tongues dueling in time with their thrusts, each giving as good as they got. Tugging at her hair, Alec pulled her back at an angle on the counter, sliding her bottom off of it and into the air.

Digging her nails into his scalp, Max disengaged one leg, sliding it back under his arm and up his body until it was resting over his shoulder.

She winked.

Alec flashed his teeth, dropping her back onto the table and placing his hands firmly against its surface. The mid of her back hit the table's edge, but neither noticed. Not to be one-upped, Max pulled him down with her, demanding kisses with nips and licks along his jaw and lips.

Throwing all his weight forward, Alec picked up the pace of his thrusts, using the new angle and leverage of the table to drive himself deeper, until both transgenics were panting, a thin sheen of sweat covering perfectly engineered bodies. One hand came up to fondle her breasts, fingers tweaking her nipples.

Max growled, nails digging into Alex's ass, demanding more. Alec gave her nipple a last tug before shoving her other leg back towards her body and pinning it there against the desk.

Wiggling her toes at him just to remind him that she was far more flexible than this, Max ran one hand up his back, trying to catch her own leverage to tilt her hips up against the rough rhythm of his thrusts.

The angle caught, just right, and Max found herself unexpectedly falling apart, the heat an electrical charge in her body as she came. There was a resounding crack as Alec's hand went right through the metal counter, but he was right behind her, coming with a final thrust that left them out of breath in the middle of a kiss - cutting off moans that would surely have made it through sound-proofed walls.

He managed to pull his hand back before they both collapsed, Max sliding them both off the table, not entirely intentionally.

Max ended up straddling Alec's lap, her head and back resting against the desk front. She gingerly brought her legs down off Alec's shoulders until she was resting on her knees, and broke the kiss for a gasping breath.

Shaking his head, still buried deep inside her, chest heaving, Alec brought his arms around Max's waist and rested his head against her shoulder.

All bent up together, they took a moment to nuzzle each other, resting sweat-slicked bodies while advanced minds whirred to catch up with the situation.

After a few moments, Max lifted her head. "Let me see your hand."

Not the most romantic post-coital statement, but... Alec shifted his weight, sliding out of her and scooting back until both of them ended up with their bare bottoms against the concrete floor, lifting his hand between them for inspection.

Reaching to the side, Max managed to gather her discarded shirt, one of the few pieces of clothing not shredded, and used it to wipe off the blood. Alec winced.

Max rolled her eyes as she continued to inspect the damage. "Baby."

"Oh yeah? Where'd you learn first aid, out in the post-pulse ghetto?"

Extracting a particularly unpleasant shard of metal, Max relished his slight grimace, "I'll have you know I excelled as a field medic."

Leaning on his good hand, Alec snorted, "I'll believe that when - oww, watch that - when I see your file."

Determining the cuts at least clean of any other nasty bits of metal, Max shrugged. "Manticore burnt down. No records of achievement left, and I must have missed the day they were handing out placards. How bad does it feel?"

Stopping her before she could wrap her shirt around his hand, Alec brought up his severed shirt, offering, "You already owe me a new one," as she wrapped it around his hand, and giving her a little nip when she leaned too close. "It's a close one, but I think I'll live."

Once the last knot was tied, he sank back to the floor, bringing his injured hand above his head, and using the other to wrap around Max as she followed him, draped over his body, face nestled in his neck.

"Good," she muttered, eyes already drifting closed.

Tracing his fingers over the markings adoring her body, Alec couldn't help but shake his head at the desk and hopelessly scattered papers. "Think anybody heard that?"

The soothing stroke of his fingers on her back was already lulling Max to sleep, her brain only semi-operative. "Mmm... No."

It was only a second, and her eyes snapped open, darting around to him, to his hand, and to their clothes. "Fuck. How are we going to walk out of here?"

"With really smug smiles."

"Smart-Alec."

"Alec-lover."

Max's eyes widened. "I-"

His arm tightened around her. "Shh. Go to sleep, Max."

If her shark DNA hadn't been well beyond its limits, she never would've let him have the last word.