Don't own so please don't sue.
Well, this certainly doesn't help, Alec thought to himself as the rain started to pour on the now slick streets. Keeping Max in an upright position and awkwardly trying to steer the bike with his one hand was now proving more difficult with the rain even with his advanced genetics. It certainly didn't help that most of his concentration was on Max's frail form. He could feel her constantly losing more and more energy, and it was causing him to drive more recklessly than he should have.
"Maxie, we're almost there, okay?"
"Don't…. call….me…..Maxie….." Max softly said, and even with Alec worrying as much as he was, the answer brought a smirk to his face.
At least her sense of humor wasn't damaged, Alec thought. Finally he turned onto their street, skidding the car to a haphazard stop. Swiftly, yet carefully, he lifted Max of the seat, irritated when she refused to be carried, and helped her walk to the elevator. Pushing the number five, he leaned back against the wall and looked down at Max, who was leaning on his chest. Fortunately the blood flow had stopped, but the large stain on the front of her torn clothes was proof that it wasn't soon enough. The random scratches on her face were merely flesh wounds, looking bad but their quick healing should take care of them, but it wasn't her face that Alec was most worried about. Her ears still had the patches of dried blood, so much that even the rain didn't clean it off all the way. He knew that she was using her genetics to the extreme when trying to break into the safe. It worried him that her ears where hypersensitive when the loud explosive went off. He hoped that there would be no permanent damage. The elevator reached their floor and Alec walked Max down the hall and into their apartment.
Their apartment wasn't that big, just big enough for two. It was right outside Terminal City, five floors completely abandoned for fear of the toxins of TC. They both didn't find it weird or uncomfortable to be living with each other. They hardly ever were home, and with two separate rooms and bathrooms, awkward situations hardly ever happened. Although sometimes…
Alec placed Max upright on the couch. She let herself fall back into the cushions. Her strength was quickly leaving her, and all she wanted to do was sleep. The pain was still there, but was more of a dull aching then how it was when the explosive went off. She watched as Alec hurriedly got the medical supplies, the worry evident on his face. She wasn't so concerned. After being shot twice, dead once, this didn't seem like anything that bad. In fact, out of all her injuries, this was definitely not one of the worst. It also helped that Alec was here. His presence helped her to not worry about her wounds, knowing that he would scrutinize over every scratch, making sure he wrapped up and disinfected everything.
"Okay," said Alec, placing all his supplies beside him. "You are going to have to sit up for me Maxie."
"K," Max slowly lifted herself up, shivering while doing so. The rain from their quick bike ride was making her cold. It didn't help that leather and water were very uncomfortable. Alec quickly noticed this, again his worry reaching intense levels.
"Max, are you okay. Are you seizing? Do I need to get the trypt?" he asked very quickly, already halfway standing up and on his way to the medicine cabinet.
Max chuckled, grabbing him before he could get to far. "I'm okay, Alec. Just cold."
Alec sighed, while organizing his supplies, he thought back to when he first found out about her brain deficiency. He wouldn't admit it to anyone, but it was one of the scariest moments of his life.
Flashback:
It had been three weeks after the raising of the flag, and everything was as hectic as ever. Everyday, transgenics were coming in, some severely wounded and other groups in mourning with the loss of one of their own from encounters with angry ordinaries and even the occasional Familiar. The medical supplies were getting dangerously low as well as the food supply, and the growing number of protesters were reaching and all time high. Alec, however, managed to sneak a full bag of potato chips from a convenient store and was walking up to Max's office, knowing full well that she had not eaten at all that day.
"Hey, Maxie, I brought some chi-" he cut off, dropping his bag of chips when he saw Max. She had her head directly against the table, her hands wrapped tightly around her head, and her form was visibly shaking. At first, Alec thought she was crying, but he quickly saw that these shakes were affecting her whole body and that they were too intense to be her simply crying.
"Max!" he blurred to her in a second, trying to unwrap her rigid hands from her head. "Max, what's going on? Tell me what's happening?"
She couldn't answer him. Her eyes were tightly shut and it seemed like all her concentration was on her shakes. She opened her mouth, but quickly shut it again. Alec wrapped her in his arms, as if he this would help stop whatever was going with her body.
"S-s-e-e-i-i-z-z-u-u-r-r-e-e-s-s," Max choked out, pain brightly showing on her face.
"What??" Alec was deeply confused. They were made to be perfect. He had never seen anything like this before at Manticore. "What can I do? Max, tell me what I need to do?"
She shook her head, even this simple action seemed like a chore to her. "P-ppp-ills are a-l-ll g-g-g-one. C-c-ant find-d-d m-milk. J-j-just neeed t-t-t-o wait f-f-or it to p-pass."
"Max, I can get someone-" Alec tried, still extremely worried about her.
"NO, Alec!" she cried out. "It…..will…..pass." The look on her face was absolute.
"Fine," Alec sighed. Still having her in his arms, he slid down the wall and held her shaking form.
"Y-you d-d-don't have t-t-o st-t-tay," Max said in-between tremors.
"Yes, I do," Alec responded, holding her tighter. She was safe in his arms, Alec thought, he promised himself right then that she would always be safe in his arms.
End Flashback
Alec didn't know why that memory came to his head. He knew it was a special moment between them, helping strengthen their freindship. The day after when she told him about her deficiency was the day he always made sure she always had some trypt with her. She told him not to worry about it, that the pain wasn't that bad, but he knew. The look on her face told him everything about her condition, and Alec would do anything never to see her in that kind of pain again. He looked now at her stomach. He leather jacket was torn up towards the middle, sticking to her skin by the blood. It needed to come off. Alec smirked, knowing Max's reaction to what he was about to say.
"You are going to have to take your shirt off, Maxie."
"Excuse me?" Max replied, his comment kicked in a second wind. "Just cause i'm scrachted up doesn't mean I won't kick your ass."
"Oh, Maxie, Maxie. First of all I know my ass is great, you don't have to keep mentioning it-"
"You dic-."
"Second of all," Alec interrupted her, "your shirt is sticking to your wounds, and I can't disenfect unless all that grungy material is out."
"Yeah, right." Max said skeptically.
"C'mon Max. It is strictly professional. I promise."
She looked at his stupid smirk on his face, but she could tell that it didn't reach his eyes. She knew he would never take advantage of her, that his worry was far to great for him to even be thinking that right now.
"Fine," she said, exhaustion setting in again. She put her fingers to the zipper, bring it down until it jammed where the explosive hit. She broke it easily, ripping the rest of the zipper off. But she came to a standstill when she tried taking off the torn material. It hurt more than she thought it would.
"Here let me help you," Alec said, softly replacing her hands with his. He slowly began removing the jacket, peeling carefully at the places stuck to her skin. His soft touch barely being felt by her. But she did wince at a particular piece that was difficult to remove.
"Sorry,"
"It's okay, Alec." She answered, little goosebumps forming when he removed the jacket from off her shoulders.
"You okay?" Alec asked looking her in the eyes.
"Yeah…." Max replied, looking at him too. "I'm okay."
They stared at each other for awhile, until Max looked down, trying to escape his gaze. Alec looked away too, starting to clean her wounds. She laid back, her eyes closing as she felt once again his soft hands doing their job. She felt almost ridiculously safe. Soon, she was falling all the way asleep, when a sudden pain caused her to jump.
"Sorry, Maxie," Alec said. She looked down to see he was holding her up, trying to wrap bandages around her torso. "I have to do it tight."
"It's okay, Alec. I know. It's not that bad, really."
"Yeah, been there, done that, right?"
Max laughed softly, "Exactly, I've definitely been through worse."
Alec winced this time. Yes, she had. Unfortuantely, out of all the injuries she had, this one definitely wasn't the worst. A fact that Alec felt really annoyed about. He put the last finishing touches on her stomach, looking at her as he did so.
"All done," he said.
She looked down, satisified by his job. "Thanks, Alec. I'm going to wash my face and head to bed."
She got up slowly, but her walk was definitely more sturdy then it was earlier this evening. Alec watched as she walked towards her bathroom, sighing as he saw new runes on her back that he hadn't seen before that night. Leaning back on the couch, he thought over their many problems. Low food, low medical supplies, low on weapons, new runes, biblical-sized destruction coming up, even the money that the stole today wouldn't help them as much as they needed it to. Alec felt on edge, like something bad was going to happen very soon. That this whole thing was going to climax incredibly quickly. He sighed again, getting up to get into his own bed. He walked over to Max's room, checking to see if she was in bed already. He saw her already under the covers, her regular breathing showing that she was already sleeping. Knowing that she was safe, Alec walked to his own room, collapsing on his bed, not even bothering to remove his clothes before falling into a deep sleep.
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They were surrounded. Escape wasn't even an option. The women watched as the figures approached their group. Even while getting into her fighting stance she knew this wouldn't end in a good way. She saw as the figures raised their guns at them. Sons of bitches, she thought, mother-fucking cowards won't even fight us. She looked at the one whose gun pointed at her. She didn't even blink when they fired.
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Max jumped quickly awake, instant wincing at the pain on her stomach. Breathing heavily, she untangled the sheets from her sweating form. She knew something wasn't right. She hadn't been dreaming at all, but for some reason her body woke her up in an aggravated state. She put her head in her hands, trying to will this feeling away. But she knew that this wasn't a feeling to be ignored, she had felt it before. Almost two months ago at Jam Pony. She jumped out of bed, pulling on some jeans and a t-shirt before running over to Alec's room.
"Alec! Get up! We have to go to TC," she yelled.
Alec jumped awake as quickly as she did, although confusion and sleep were mixed on his face. "What's going on, Max? It's only been an couple hours."
"I don't know, Alec," fear shown on her face. "But something happened somewhere. Something bad."
"What?" Alec was more confused than ever. "Something bad happened somewhere? What does that mean?"
"I don't know, Alec!" She looked at him, trying to calm down, but the feeling was intensifying and she didn't know why or what was going on. "We just need to go now! Just trust me."
"Okay, okay. I trust you, I trust you." Alec said grabbing some pants and a t-shirt while following Max out the door. He had seen that look on her face once before, and it was something that he knew to trust no matter how scary and unknown it was.
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When they arrived at TC, the city seemed to match Max's frantic state. They spotted Mole yelling profuseling into a phone-
"What do you mean they aren't answering their fucking phone-well go get them! I SAID GO GET THEM!" Mole screamed, slaming the phone back on the receiver.
"Mole! What's going on?" Max shouted to him.
Mole looked at the phone and back at them, "Wha-, no I don't care. We have some serious shit going down here."
"What happened?" Alec asked.
"About 10 minutes ago, we received footage from Logan of a group of ten transgenics being shot with tranquilizers and dragged into a van," Mole said.
"Where did they take them?" Alec asked.
"Logan pinpointed their position to an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of Seattle. It's about 30 minutes away from here." Mole looked up at them, "What's the plan?"
Max and Alec looked at each other. The both recognized the Pharynx team that had attacked them at Jam Pony in the video.
"It looks and feels a lot like a trap," Alec said after awhile. "That has to be the only reason they didn't just kill them."
"I know. Me and Phil thought the same thing," Mole said pointing over to the computer genius that had popped into their lives over a month ago. His specialty was everything technical, and with him and Logan together, the transgenics hardly missed one important event that was going on. "So we leave them there." Mole said, taking a puff of his cigar.
Alec sighed. Of course that's what was going through his mind as well. It's what Manticore drilled into them. An unnecessary risk, especially when you didn't know why they were setting up the trap.
"No, ten transgenics is too many, Mole. Hell, one transgenic is too many. We aren't in Manticore anymore. One human life is worth the risk." Alec said passionately, looking Mole straight in the eyes.
This time Mole sighed, "I knew you would say that Pretty Boy. Ok then, we attack," Mole smiled, "I like that situation too. So what is the plan."
Max spoke up this time, "Is Flick and his team back yet?"
"Yep, everything went smoothly. Got the weapons and suffered no casualties," Mole answered.
"Ok, get him up here with the supplies. We are going to need a pretty good-sized team, since we don't know how many are in that warehouse. Try to get anyone with any experience in fighting Familiars." Max said. "Let me know when everyone is up here. I want to move out in 2 hours."
She headed towards her office then, Alec right behind her. He knew she wanted some time to think about this situation, and her sixth sense behind the whole thing.
As soon as the door was closed, Alec spoke up, "We aren't going to have a lot of people for this team."
"I know," Max said sitting down at her desk
"Hardly anyone has that much experience with Familiars, and those that do aren't willing to jump back in that situation."
"I know Alec, what do you want me to do?" Max said looking up at him from behind her desk.
Alec frowned, "I don't know. This is the best plan we have I guess."
Max groaned, "This doesn't even make sense. I mean obviously it's a trap. But for what? For me? Cause there are easier ways for White to get me alone. He knows we are bringing in a team, he must know that. So what is his plan?"
Max put her hands on her head and sighed. The feeling was declining but it was still there. Like a reminder that this wasn't going to be a simple extract mission. She suddenly felt a hand on her shoulder.
"It's gonna be okay, Maxie." Alec said.
"No it's not, Alec," she stood up and faced him. "This is it, Alec."
He looked at her confused, "This is what?"
"The start of the war."
Okay second chapter finished. Sorry it took me so long and that its not that long. I promise the next chapter will have more action. Okay, please please review. Tell me what you think. Thanks everyone who did in the last chapter. Keep up the review. REVIEW! please. Hope you guys love it!
Unfortunately Clever
