Yes, it's true; I'm alive! And this… is somewhat of a follow-up to "Ten…" if you will. Or maybe not. (: either way, it's dedicated to all those who I owe one or the other review, and to those who ever read a piece of my weird writing (: Thanks!

Like shooting elephants with a .22

… Eons had passed since she had said it…

I love you

She had really said it, right? Had even repeated it, making sure there would be no mistaking who she meant?

I love you, Alec

But no; it couldn't be.—Then again, of course it could. She was severely hurt after all. That deafening noise… At the memory he shook his head in a lame attempt at getting rid of an annoying sense of haziness. With clinical transgenic efficiency he moved to assess Max's poor state of health, beginning with the wound on the back of her head, allowing his hands to travel down her body, assessing each limb individually, not once lingering longer than necessary. His nerve ends were bristling, though for once he didn't like the sort of tension responsible for it.

Max had suffered severe trauma to her head, as well as to her internal organs, that much he could tell. It made it impossible for him, as he rationalized, to move her away from where they both were situated. So close to the center of disaster…

… They hadn't been far away from Command at the time the bomb went off. Alec had basically run into Max on his way there, since both of them had been supposed to discuss Terminal City's more pressing issues with Mole and the guys. Business as usual, so to speak. All was well as long as they still found the time for one or the other friggin' discussion, or so he had told himself right before… yeah, before "all" had chosen to be well no more.

Before someone had succeeded in smuggling explosives into Command and blasted the goddamn building.

He stared hard into Max's glazed eyes, daring her to stay awake by sheer force of will. "Come on, Maxie," he muttered as he tried to wrap his mind around what had just happened. An explosion. A shock wave so powerful it had flung both him and Max into the air with such swift velocity they hadn't even had time to utter a single cry of surprise.

Afterward, there had only been an eerie silence, gray, ashen flakes of something whirling above them as their bodies crashed to the ground. Alec was sure he had heard the horrible thud of Max's head impacting with the concrete of the street underneath, even though the explosion had momentarily rendered him deaf.

All was silence. Even her words he had had to read from her bloodied lips. Now, though, despite her weak resistance, he finally took a scrap of his tattered t-shirt and gently, carefully wiped those traces of red away as best he could. That simple touch was all the comfort he could offer her now, for he couldn't move her. Her body, looking broken, spineless nearly, lay sprawled on the street, her dark hair a halo of curls around her head. But it was Alec who seemed to be the one in pain. He wasn't even aware of the torn expression that had settled on his face, a mixture of fear, sorrow, worry, and more than anything, hurt and affection.

Pain…

Alec

His name, on her lips.

"Max. Don't say anything," he urged, unnerved at not even being able to hear his own voice. "Don't move. It's going to be alright. All—"

The others, Alec. You have to make sure they're okay…

Oh hell, he thought, flinching, fighting hard to suppress a gagging reflex. Obviously, the opportunistic jerk in him still hadn't quite died entirely; or how else was he to explain to himself why his concern hadn't reached any farther than to include Max, who was now lying close to him in the debris? How was he to explain why his thoughts hadn't instantaneously reached out to those poor wretches in Command? Mole, Luke, Dix… Were they still alive? Was there even the remotest chance for at least one of them to have survived the explosion?

Max's eyes bore into his, but he could tell that staying conscious was becoming harder for her by the second.

His expression settled somewhere between a smile and a frown. Of course her first coherent thoughts revolved around other people, not her own miserable situation.

Alec.

She had always cared about others too much for her own good, had become attached to them more than was advisable. He, on the other hand…

Alec?

"Huh?" The light touch of her hand on his leg brought his wandering mind back to the present. He cursed inwardly, telling himself to work harder at staying focused. He had to; for the guys in Command… as well as for her; for Max. Right then, Alec noticed how her eyes suddenly rolled back into her head, turning ghostly white before closing of their own accord. At the sight, he had to try and fight a sudden sharp pang of dread, cursing himself as he realized that already he had gotten too emotionally attached to the bossy brunette to remain calm. Yelling "No. Max. Max! You can't do this! You can't leave me now, come on!" he crouched down over her then, and quickly placed his hands over her heart. In a desperate attempt at discerning at least a light flutter, some trace of life inside of her, he ordered her to "Stay with me! Max! Dammit," ignoring the sudden feeling of panic creeping up in him. There was no time for panic now, no time for any kind of emotion, he reminded himself. But while he had once been eager to accept the truth of that statement, he suddenly found that he no longer could.

All because of one Max Guevara; X5 like himself; and yet so much more.

In the split second it took for him to realize that he couldn't even feel the slightest beat of her heart underneath his fingers, in that brief moment when everything around him suddenly seemed frozen in time, Alec finally and all too clearly remembered why he had never allowed himself to get attached to anyone in the first place.

Too late now…

Yup. Me? Still weird as always… and on a random note: anyone else tried that spiffy "dark" button at the top? So much more fun to read stories that way! (: