Chapter 3

Max had thought Manticore was Hell when she'd been locked up there as a child. Then she'd escaped and realized that particularly awful foster homes shared the same title. And after that, when she got a job working with the most annoying, sarcastic republican on the planet, Max had come to equate work with Hell, too.

But now she was absolutely, positively sure that this was Hell. Lying on a couch in her empty apartment, with no sound except the rain drizzling bleakly outside her window and nothing to think about except the blinding, white-hot pain in the middle of her thigh. Her gunshot wound hadn't even seemed this bad—but then again, she'd been in the hospital with awesome medicine for the first few days after the injury.

God, she missed Alec.

Incredibly, unbelievably, she really wanted that smartass back. He was so infuriating that he managed to draw her mind away from the fact that there was an inches-deep slash in her leg. And now, without his constant, annoying chatter and his soothing voice for when things got really painful, she had no one to help her through it. She didn't like the dependency, but she couldn't deny it, either. She just blamed it on her weakened state.

Not that she'd ever tell Alec any of this. Asshole hadn't even stuck around afterwards to make sure she was alright.

Fine, she knew that was a little unfair. So he'd pretty much had her back the entire night, and she probably wouldn't have made it home otherwise. But she was in pain, dammit, what did she care about being reasonable at a time like this?

After suffering for just over two hours, Max was about ready to rip her hair out. Or jump out the window and hopefully land on her head. Whichever came first. So when she heard the quick knock on the front door, she was pretty sure she had reached the point of having hallucinations.

When the pounding grew louder and more insistent, and then stopped only to transition to small, scratching metallic sounds, she wondered what her imagination had in store for her. She looked at the door curiously, waiting for it to open as the person on the other side picked the flimsy lock. When it swung outward and revealed Alec, she was vaguely unsurprised. She closed her eyes once, held them shut for a second, and then opened them again. He didn't disappear, but stayed solid and real-looking.

"What are you doing here?" She asked, agitation streaking through her tone. He stopped in his tracks and shot her an annoyed look.

"Since you look like hell," He began, and wasn't that a funny coincidence? "I'm going to ignore that comment."

He lifted his hand and shook a tiny bottle that she had only just noticed. Then he tossed it to her, and she was glad to see her reflexes were still reliable despite the damage her body had suffered. She stared at the container in her hand, reading the label.

"What's this?" She asked, because she had never heard of the brand before.

"Painkillers," He said promptly, leaning against the kitchen counter in a decidedly casual stance. "Got them awhile back. It took some searching, but eventually I found some that actually work for us. Really strong medicine—not available for the general public." He smirked into her stunned face. "I'd advise you not to take too many, though, because they can get a little… addicting. And detox is a bitch."

She swallowed once, glanced at the bottle, and then looked back at him. She didn't say anything for a long while after that, and he frowned at her.

"What? Did the other ones actually work?"

She shook her head slowly. "No, they wore off about thirty minutes after I took them."

"Then what's the problem?"

She looked at the pills again, and a spear of longing went through her. It would be so nice to get rid of the ache…

"Nothing," She said finally, gruffly. "Nothing's wrong. I… thanks."

He shook his head in a resigned sort of way, presumably at the roughness of her voice. "You didn't think I'd just leave you, did you?" His voice was dripping with humor and left her to ponder whether or not he was actually serious.

"I guess not," She said grudgingly, eyeing him. He seemed uncomfortable under his gaze, and reached up a hand to scratch his neck. It was a distinctly awkward movement, and she would have laughed had she not spotted a bright, fluid substance clinging to his fingernails. It shown in the dusky morning light, and he, too, looked down at his hand as if surprised.

"Oh." He said.

"Alec," Max began, just a hint of worry under her tone. She had completely forgotten until now the way Alec had pulled the knife-wielding guard off of her. The move had switched the guard's focus from Max to Alec, and there had been a split second, hardly longer than a heartbeat, in which the cool, lethal blade had rested against Alec's neck. She'd had no idea it had left such a deep mark.

He looked back up at her, and the surprise in his eyes seemed to sharpen. "I'll be fine," He said, his voice hesitantly reassuring, like he couldn't tell whether or not she wanted to be reassured. "It's nothing. And neither is yours, actually, compared to some of the stuff I went through at Manticore. Once I—,"

She shot him a fierce look, wanting to quell his sudden burst of talkativeness before he went any farther. She didn't want to hear about all the things that had happened to him while he had been there. She didn't want to know how much he had suffered while she had been out carving a life for herself in the real world. She would never forget the angry words he'd spoken to her over his glass of scotch that night, letting her know that she could never understand.

And right now, she didn't really want to test that theory, because she was afraid he was right. That for all her self-righteous anger at Manticore, she really didn't understand the worst of what went on in that place.

His mouth closed with an audible snap, and the sound pulled her back into the present. She realized, as she watched his face close off, that she'd just made another mistake. For some reason, Alec had chosen that moment to open up to her, whether or not he had been about to tell her some stupid anecdote involving one of his unit-mates or a report of an injury he'd suffered a long time ago. And she'd just effectively cut him off again, because she had been too focused on not being able understanding him.

"Sorry, go ahead," She said as softly as she knew how, which was difficult and not altogether effective.

He stared at her a moment more and then shook his head, a smirk brushing over his lips. "Nah, forget it. Stupid, anyway."

She wanted to growl in frustration then, because she hated seeing the way he shut himself off. She recognized the tactic—had been taught the same one her entire life—and she wondered for the first time if this is how it felt to deal with her. She had never really met anyone who was as closed off as she was, had never tried to befriend anyone with bigger secrets than hers. It was a strange feeling, and one she didn't really want to contemplate too heavily.

"Y'know, I brought them over so you could take them," He said casually, his smile widening as amusement flashed in his green eyes.

She looked down at the bottle again, having forgotten the reason he had come over here in the first place. She didn't really know how to feel about that, either. He had come for her, because he must have known that she was desperately uncomfortable in her current state. And although she realized now that she hadn't thought about her wound since Alec's arrival, she knew it would become the center of her focus once he left again. She unscrewed the bottle and tipped a few out in her hand.

She was just about to throw them into her mouth when she stopped and looked at him suspiciously. "Wait. These won't make me act like an idiot or anything, will they?"

"Don't be stupid, Max," He said, and she ignored the jibe as she moved to put the tablets into her mouth again. "You don't need pills to make you act like an idiot."

She froze, looking at him with slightly wide eyes. He had never come out and really insulted her before, not quite like that. And she could see by the delighted look on his face that he was pretty pleased with himself. She felt the intense urge to kick his ass, but there was no way she would be able to reach him in time on her leg.

She gave it a moment's thought and then tipped the pills back into the bottle, using her free hands to pick up one of the small throw pillows next to her. Quickly, she pulled back her arm and launched the pillow at him, using just enough of her transgenic ability to make the impact sting. She grinned when it slapped him directly in the face.

"Max!" He groaned, his voice muffled. A moment later he reappeared, his face slightly red and his hair mussed. "You're the only one who would actually use a pillow to injure someone! Don't you know you're supposed to dress up in skimpy lingerie and shit for this kind of stuff?"

He sounded so incredulous that she had to laugh. First it started with a few giggles, and grew until she was doubling over to try and stem the laughter. When she finally reemerged and wiped the corners of her eyes, she saw Alec staring at her, his gaze dancing with surprise and his mouth slack.

Silence reigned for a few moments.

"Uh, Max?"

"Yeah?"

"I think you finally lost it."

She felt another hysterical laugh bubble in her stomach and fought it back, thinking that maybe he was right. "No… I just haven't slept in awhile."

"You don't usually sleep, anyway."

She growled in frustration, and the urge to chuckle disintegrated. "This is different!"

"Uh-huh."

She shot him a glower but decided upon further reflection not to answer.

"Max?"

Could he ever not talk? "What, Alec?"

"You can take the pills, you know. They won't do anything to you. Except what you want them to do." He sounded earnest, or at least as earnest as a genetically-altered killing machine could sound. It was a complete one-eighty from the angry, suggestive guy he'd been a minute before. She blinked.

"Oh."

Max contemplated that for another moment and then shook a few of the small, tubular capsules out into her palm. Tilting her head back, she put them in her mouth and then swallowed dryly.

"Thanks," She said once the process was complete. It was funny, the number of times she had said that to him in the last few hours. Made her realize how dependent she was on him when it came to helping Logan out or just having her back in crazy situations.

He shrugged again and avoided her eyes. "Yeah, sure."

It was the first time it had ever bothered her, the awkwardness of it all. She could say thanks to Logan without being uncomfortable about it; she was always perfectly at ease acting grateful toward O.C or Sketchy. What made Alec so different, that they didn't work that way?

Maybe it was because of the secrets. In all of her other relationships, she was the screwed up one. The one who had to bend to fit into what everyone else thought was normal. Not that they had ever told her she had to, but they would be uncomfortable if they knew the extent of what she kept buried beneath the surface. Maybe not O.C quite as much, but Sketchy didn't even know her secret and Logan was constantly asking her to live up to his morals. That made it easier, somehow, to do things like smile and show gratitude. Maybe because in relationships like that, it seemed less real; part of it was fake, so she wasn't really opening herself up, was she?

But Alec... Alec was just as messed up as her—more, if that was possible. He was like her in a lot of ways, which meant he could see through her more easily, get her in ways other people couldn't. It made things like this—things like apologies and conversations—more personal. And Max really hated personal.

"Max? You zoning already?"

She blinked a few times, realizing that she had, in fact, been caught up in her thoughts. She shook her head. "Sorry," She said absently, and then smiled ruefully at herself.

"What?"

He was starting to fear for her sanity, she could tell. Well, he was just going to have to deal with it. She was obviously not at the top of her game, and didn't really care much what he thought right now. After a few moments, he wisely chose to change the subject.

"You want me to tell Normal you've got a cold, or something? Or that your cat died? Or that you've been accidentally launched into outer-space because you snuck on board to push all the shiny red buttons?"

"I think I've already been launched into space," She said thoughtfully. "Go with the flu. I don't want to tempt the fates by saying my cat died. Never know how the gods'll interpret that one."

A surprised, sputtering laugh grabbed her attention, and she glanced back up at him, her brow furrowed. "Maxie's cracking jokes. Never thought I'd see the day."

Her frown deepened. "Hey! I make jokes all the time. It's not my fault you haven't heard them."

"Well," He said in a mockingly considerate voice, "If you actually told your jokes to me, maybe I would hear them."

She opened her mouth to reply when another piece of information slowly filtered through her slightly hazy brain. Her frown turned less annoyed, more serious. "Oh," She said slowly, "You're going to work?"

That was another thing about transgenics. They never actually said what they meant. And in this case, what she meant was, You're leaving?

She didn't know why that surprised her now, when earlier she had been sure he'd head out a few minutes after he'd arrived.

"Yeah," He said, his speech just as deliberate as hers. He snorted. "Although, it's not like I have to. If I call in sick, Normal will probably send over a care package." Would you rather I didn't?

Max mirrored his grunt. "You're gonna be sorry when he starts following you around on your runs and driving by your place at night." Yes.

He seemed to think that over for a minute. "Good point." He glanced at the crooked old television set resting on a dresser in the far corner. "Anything good on TV?" You want me to stay with you?

She spent a few seconds digging in between the spaces of the couch and finally found an equally battered remote control. She tossed it at him. "Here, check. But no porn, annoying music videos or action movies." Obviously.

He sunk into the chair he'd sat in a few hours earlier and hit the power button. She watched the way his eyes lit up as the television drifted leisurely to life. "Aw, but those are the best." You can only get the good porn on cable.

"No," She said forcefully, and then leaned back into the couch. Her head was still weirdly dizzy, and her eyelids suddenly felt heavy. Maybe this is what it felt like to be truly, honestly drugged. Huh.

"Oh, and Alec?" She said, cracking an eye open.

He looked at her expectantly.

"Keep your feet off the coffee table."

This doesn't change anything.

A/N: Okay, for those who haven't read my stories before, I have a very hard time letting anything be too fluffy. Which explains that last line. But there is actually more to this—I'm thinking one more part. Probably. More soon.