A/N- This is a piece that I have had on my computer for some time. It was originally started as a response to a challenge for authors to write why Max was so nasty to Alec. I finished it but really didn't like it. I hate Max being so nasty for no reason and I don't think she is that bad. But I am trying to clear all my DA stories so here goes.

Sure hurt.

The night was well along and the dark had long ago seeped in to cover the ground with its black fingers.

At this late hour the deserted back alley to the techno club Crash was home to only garbage and a few misguided rats and even the thumping beat could not dissuade them from their foraging for food.

Except for their muffled search for sustenance the alley was silent, until the back exit swung open violently and a booted pair of feet stormed out. The iron door slammed on its hinges and barrelled back into place but, before it could shut, another person barged out.

The rats scrambled back as the second pair of shoes hurried after the first.

"Max! Come on I was joking!"

"Bite me!"

Alec sighed and hurried after the form of Max, grabbing her wrist.

"Get the hell off me and get back in there with your groupies," she spat and Alec was taken aback at her vehemence.

"Hey, I'm sorry if I was outta line, you know me and my mouth. Come on Max., O.C has been waiting for you to hang for a while she says you don't come out much anymore."

"And if I'd known you were here, I wouldn't have come at all."

Alec's face was a mask of hurt. "Hey!"

Max shrugged his hand off and stalked away. "Leave me alone already."

Like he didn't do that enough. He had tried to leave her alone but there was something about her that drew him to her, like a moth to a flame—no, something more destructive; like an addict to the drug.

But she wanted nothing to do with him; seemed to despise the fact that he even breathed and Alec couldn't even think what he had done that would garner such blind hatred.

"Why Max?" Alec's face was set. He wanted answers.

"Because you bug the crap outta me," she yelled over her shoulder.

"No," Alec raced after her. "Why, Max, why do you hate me so much?"

She glared at him incredulously and the litany of his misdeeds that she had reeled off when in the ring sprung to mind.

Alec was on the same wavelength but shook his head.

"No, this isn't about the virus or Josh delivering packages. What the hell is it?" he demanded.

"Go away."

"Alec," he stressed.

Max turned to look at him. "What?"

"How come you never say my name anymore, huh Maxie? You named me."

Max clenched her fists as he raced in front of her, not letting her leave.

"Okay, Alec, get out of my way or I'll—"

"What? Kick my ass; call me names? Already done that, Max. How about telling me the truth for a change?"

"You don't want to hear the truth," Max sneered. "I'm jealous of your success, I hate the women—I'm in love with you. Is that what you want to hear? Sorry Alec, I won't lie."

He swallowed; the words perilously close to what he actually wanted to hear.

"Tell me."

She stared at him, not noticing that the heavens had clouded over making the night even darker.

"I was actually pleased to see you at Logan's the first time, did you know that, Alec?"

He blinked at her rapid subject change.

"What?"

"It's true. That first day when you showed up I was actually pleased to see you. You were a link to my past and I could see you becoming a permanent part of my life."

Alec didn't say a word; not wanting to break the spell that she had weaved around him but his heart pounded in his chest as he stared into her eyes.

"Then you went postal on me and Joshua and you tried to fry his ass and mine."

"I stopped," he said desperately. "I couldn't go through with it."

"I know, but you were there with your knife and you had me pinned to the floor; helpless and vulnerable. I looked up into your eyes and you know what I saw?"

Alec shook his head.

"Ben," she said softly, her eyes not focussed on his. "When Logan told me that Ben was a murderer I didn't believe it. I never believed that he was a killer. Never. Not even when they showed me pictures, not even when I saw him run after Father Destry, none of it would ever have convinced me that Ben was anything other than that sweet misguided boy he had always been. But you," she looked directly into his eyes and, for the first time, Alec saw the anger and pain that those depths held, "when you stood over me with the knife with Ben's face and his eyes. Eyes that were…" she gritted her teeth, "the self- hatred, and the desperation. You would have killed me and it wasn't you. It was Ben. Ben. For the first time I believed it—I had proof in front of me willing and ready to dissect me for his own gain. That was you. You made me glad that he was gone, glad that he was dead. Because he was a killer."

Alec stepped back, having no idea what to say to that. He had no idea that his twin had been a murderer; he had only known that things hadn't gone well for him out here.

"I didn't kill you, I couldn't," he reminded himself out loud.

"So what makes you so different to him," she spat, tears glistening in her eyes. "I never really blamed you for losing the money, the baseball, the virus, Joshua, any of it. It doesn't matter; never mattered. But what you did— what you made me see— for that, that's why I hate you. For making me believe. For the first time I truly lost him and THAT is on you."

He let her go and she spun on her heel, her hair whipping around and across his face like mini whips, lashing his face with the tips, stinging; painful.

But nowhere near as painful as the wounds she had made on his soul; nowhere near as painful as the scars now adorning his conscience, or the shattered remains of his heart at his feet.

He looked down, not wanting to see her as she walked away, knowing full well that he would be leaving Seattle this night, unable to be around her knowing that she hated him; knowing that he had just lost the best thing that never happened to him.

For something that was over before it ever had chance to begin, it sure hurt.