Alphabet
A/N: Thank you to everyone who reviewed! Here are parts G and H! For some reason these two were a lot harder than the other ones, and I even skipped ahead to other letters before I could finally figure something out for these. Hero was the hardest and it didn't really come together like I wanted it to, but the end was kind of inspired by Firefly, which some of you might notice.
Disclaimer: I don't own Dark Angel or any of the characters. The prompts are nickeldime17's, not mine, and I won't even pretend that my attempts will be nearly as good as hers.
G – K+
H – K+
Girl
It hurt, watching her with him. From the first moment, through that chain link fence, to just knowing they were sharing a sector. To know they had similarities that he would never, could never share with her. They shared a history; they shared that pain and that torture and that training and that inescapable engineering that was always looming in the background. They shared a hurt that he just wouldn't be able to understand. There was only so much you could feel and only so much you could experience from a high rise apartment; even after you've taken the silver spoon out of your mouth. He wouldn't know what it was like to kill a man with his bare hands, to be trained how to hunt and how to assassinate and how to be superior to the rest of the world. He would never understand what it was like to have that primal side, that genetic instinct that both of them shared and that he could help her understand.
The worst wasn't watching them. It wasn't the bickering and the glaring and then the laughing and the secret smiles. It was much simpler than that. A swat upside the head that would have him grumbling for the next five minutes. A quick brush of fingers against her neck to make sure she didn't need a touch up on her barcode. A punch to the arm or just their shoulders brushing when they stood side by side. That hurt the worst. It hurt because not only would he never be able to touch her like that, but even when he'd had the chance, they rarely touched. Not half as much as he was touching her, and not half as much as she was touching him.
He said once before that it never mattered to him. What she was. It didn't matter to him that she was a transgenic, that she wasn't "natural", if you wanted to quote the media. She was cooked up in a test tube? So what, she had a heart and she had a soul, and she was beautiful for them. The fact she lied and she cheated and she stole… that was fine. She was learning to change and she was becoming a better person. She was leaving that survivalist attitude behind and she was listening to and following that moral compass that he'd always known was there. It didn't matter that she had been created to be a soldier, that she was supposed to be a weapon, an animal. Any animal in her DNA never mattered to him. Even her "destiny" didn't faze him. Savior of humanity? It didn't matter. All that mattered was Max: the girl.
Even after she moved on, he didn't flinch away. He could wait. They were meant to be, she would be able to see that. She would see that he would always just see her. He would see the girl, not the soldier or the animal or the savior. She was just Max. She would realize that it didn't matter to him and she would come back. He was steady and he was unfailing. He was just a screw up. He was a happy-go-lucky sociopath with no moral compass. Not an internal one, anyway, and Max could only lead the way for so long. She would figure it out. He could tell she wasn't ready to let go of what they had, even if she said she was. She didn't pull away from his gloved hand and she didn't even flinch. The first time could have been a fluke; it could have been the emotion of the moment. And even that little bit of knowledge was enough to make him smug for a moment. She chose to take his hand as the flag was raised. Not his. It was a minor victory, at the very least.
So when she told him one day that she wouldn't be coming back to Sandeman's house, he was shocked. He had been categorizing her latest runes, making notes and jotting down words in the margins and working out how he was going to convince her to stay for dinner. He hadn't noticed how distant she had been or how she had never quite met his eyes since she walked into the house. He had been patient and now… now it was just over? She explained herself as best she could. It wasn't him, it was her. It wasn't them, it was Terminal City. It wasn't the virus, it was the world. Why couldn't she see that it didn't matter?
She left with unshed tears shining in her eyes and when he heard someone walk through the front door a few hours later, Logan had expected Max's slim frame to round the corner into the living room. It was a slap in the face and a message he received loud and clear when it was Alec who sauntered into his line of view.
"Max forgot her jacket," Alec said bluntly, holding up the leather garment as means of proof. He had offered to retrieve it for a dozen different reasons, one of the foremost being that he wanted to set Logan straight. Tell him the truth. Tell him that he knew Max cared and that he knew it was difficult, but some things just couldn't be helped. He wanted to explain that it pissed him off a first. He hated being the bad guy, he hated that everyone just always assumed she was his girl just because he was her boy – he even hated that people assumed that he was her boy in the first place. But what he used to hate… well, he didn't hate it so much anymore. These days they exchanged late night embraces and quiet conversations more often than public brawls and nasty insults. Alec wanted Logan to understand that it hadn't been subversive, it hadn't been manipulative and it certainly hadn't been seduction. He wanted the Ordinary to understand that it wasn't underhanded, it was legitimate. The bruise that was starting to show on his jaw was evidence to how Max felt about Alec's sudden need for a heart-to-heart with the cyberjournalist formerly known as her boyfriend.
"Look, Logan, I just want you to know-"
"I don't care," Logan cut him off abruptly and Alec had to smirk at the déjà vu they had going on. A glitch in the Matrix, if you will. He shrugged and pushed off the doorframe, turning to leave. If Logan was going to be a little bitch about it, why did Alec have to be the bigger man? "I just don't understa- It never mattered to me," Logan spoke back up and Alec turned back around to face the older man. He cocked an eyebrow and took his former position back, leaning against the doorframe. "I just saw her. Always. I never saw anything else. She was just Max to me, I only saw the girl."
Alec's sudden grin was disconcerting and frustrating, and Logan frowned at him in confusion. The transgenic straightened up again and made that infuriating tsking sound, shaking his head. "You really don't get it, do you?" he asked, and the look on Logan's face told him he didn't. "All that stuff you were busy ignoring? That's what she is. That's Max." He turned on his heel, heading for the door and leaving Logan in silence. "She was never just a girl."
Hero
"We go to ground," Mole's gruff voice was no-nonsense and agitated, the words ground out around his unlit cigar. Dix frowned, Alec nodded, and Max slammed her hands down on the table.
"No! This is our home! We have every right to be here," she argued insistently and Mole growled. Alec rolled his eyes and folded his arms across his chest. Logan, who was at Max's side, nodded in agreement with the brunette.
It was the same argument that had been plaguing the higher-ups in Terminal City for a solid week. White had been conspicuously absent on the horizon for close to a month, and it was a week ago that one of Eyes Only's contacts sent word that something was brewing within the military and Seattle's sector cops were being filled in on it and roped in as well. That could only mean bad things for Terminal City, and when Logan passed the news to Max, she passed it on to Alec, and once it got to Alec, everyone in Terminal City quickly found out. He couldn't help himself. And really, he'd only told Mole. And Dix. And Joshua. Whatever. Max hadn't had time to kick his ass for it, though, because Mole had immediately decided that the best bet was for everyone to run. They could hold a reunion later, send out postcards and meet up and shake hands later. Most of the transhumans and those that had spent a greater deal of time at Manticore agreed with the suggestion. Even Alec couldn't ignore the merits of going to ground. It was safer. But of course, little Miss Wants to be Normal would have none of it.
"Max-" Alec started, his tone weary and borderline annoyed.
"No." She cut him off without even looking at him. Alec stopped and Mole smirked. He still didn't argue though, just shot the lizard man a nasty glare and clenched his jaw. For all the authority being SIC gave him over everyone else, Max still treated him like the annoying little sidekick she always had. If Alec knew how to cut whatever invisible ties that made him cling to her like he couldn't function otherwise, he would have left a long time ago. And stayed gone. But twice before he hadn't been able to manage it; chalking it up to a lost cause just saved a lot of time and energy.
"Look, little girl," Mole leveled and Alec watched Max bristle, "this ain't our home," he rolled the word off his tongue with such a mocking tone that even Alec was mildly offended, "You don't give the order and we're all going to die. Even you prissy X5s won't be able to get out of it." Max glowered at him and Luke sighed from Mole's left. The angry transhuman was right, and the longer the argument went on, the more and more people were starting to realize it and get antsy. "Give me one good reason why we should stay."
Max stiffened, shoulders squared. "This is our home. And we can't just give up. We have friends here," she offered and Alec realized her misstep instantly, while Max never saw it coming. Logan nodded once again and Mole finally snapped. It was no secret that most of the transhumans had no love for what was outside Terminal City. They were the most conspicuous, the most ridiculed, and the ones that bore the brunt of the mocking and the damning by the media. They were the ones that couldn't just walk around with free rein, and the majority of them disliked Ordinaries. Even the good natured ones like Dix and Luke were wary, and the longer Joshua spent around his fellow transhumans, the more and more he began to take their side over Logan's.
Mole grunted, waving his sawed off shotgun around for emphasis, and despite the fact the situation had suddenly become a bit more dangerous, Alec couldn't help the quick amusement that filtered through him at the way Logan tensed and gripped the table worriedly. The older man shouldn't have been there anyway. For a million different reasons, but right now, it was because he wasn't transgenic. "You have your Ordinary boy toy," Mole snapped and Alec realized belatedly he probably should have spoken up, considering his and Max's 'couple' status. Instead, he'd just hid a snicker as both Max and Logan protested. "I don't give a rat's ass about Wonder Wheels, and I don't give a rat's ass about all your Jam Pony buddies. And I don't really give a rat's ass about what an 09er thinks of giving up," Mole added on cruelly.
"Hey, buddy, watch it," Alec bit, irritated. One more name-calling and insulting session. That was just what they needed. Since when the hell was he going to have to be the voice of reason?
"We're going to ground," Mole said with a finality that gave away what was happening. Max didn't seem to notice, because she just put her hands on her hips and arched an eyebrow. Mole cocked his gun and that's when Max straightened up again.
"No. Mole, we'r-"
"Too late, Highness," Mole sneered around the cigar in his mouth. "Now it's your decision, you want this takeover to be hostile or not?"
"Mole-" Logan's calm, placating voice finally invaded the room and Alec quickly grabbed him by the arm and hauled him up, putting himself between the older man and Mole's quickly aimed shotgun.
"Can it, Log," Alec offered tersely, "Play time's over." Despite Logan's protests, he muscled the other man out of the shabby, rundown meeting room and pushed him into the hallway. "Get out of TC." Logan started to argue and Alec took a menacing step toward the moron just as Max burst from the room, looking frazzled and upset.
"Alec, what's going on?" she demanded, as if he had a hand in all of it and, most likely, that it was all his fault. Mole breezed by them with Dix and Luke hot on his heels, barking orders like he'd been in control the whole time. Max shot a helpless look at the transhuman's back and didn't know whether she was supposed to tackle him or not. How had she managed to lose control that easily?
"We're going to ground," Alec answered stiffly from his place between Max and Logan, his body still facing the other man. Logan was watching Max intently over Alec's shoulder, mostly oblivious to the sudden charge that had seemed to settle over the entire area. Things had definitely taken a turn for the worse, and Alec was torn between trying to talk sense into Mole, finishing the job of throwing Logan out, or trying to talk to Max about it all.
"We're staying," Max said in a tone that brooked no arguments and Alec wondered how long she'd been making decisions for him. He looked at Logan for a moment, whose eyes still hadn't left Max, and then, without a word, Alec walked away, not bothering a parting glance to Max. She could stare meaningfully at Logan all she wanted, but he wanted to try and do damage control as quickly as he could. Maybe he could get Mole to at least slow down a bit and think things through. Not only had Mole easily dethroned Max, he'd completely cast aside Alec as well, and that definitely didn't sit well.
The barrel of the gun Alec ended up staring down when he tried to reason with the oversized lizard made it easier to accept, though. Because, hey, getting shot was kind of his thing, but a close-range blow with a shotgun didn't seem like the type of injury to add to his collection at the present time. Maybe later. "Mole, come on, buddy. I'm just asking you to wait another day. I'll talk to Max, she'll-"
"Tell you to jump and you'll ask how high," Mole cut him off and Alec's jaw snapped shut with an audible click. That was an unexpected retort and he was shockingly speechless for a handful of seconds, giving Mole plenty of time to barrel onward. "Sorry, Princess, but I'm not waiting. White's loonies could come marching in here at any second – or worse, the military could bomb the hell out of while we're sitting here with our thumbs up our asses," he waved the gun and turned away, "I already sent the word out. If everyone is half as good as their training, this place'll be a ghost town by this time tomorrow." Mole didn't offer anything else, just stalked away, leaving a shocked and seething Alec in his wake.
She found him in his apartment, shoving clothes into a duffle. Max swallowed back the alarm as she watched Alec angrily slam shirt after shirt into the bag, not even bothering to do much more than wad up his pants before slamming them in as well. The frustration was rolling off him in waves, and the anger had the room practically pulsating.
"What's up?" Max asked quietly and Alec didn't slow down, nor did he answer her. After a few moments, Max sniffed unappreciatively and moved further into the room. Being ignored wasn't something she liked much, and if he was doing what she thought he was doing, he needed to tell her so she could tell him to stop.
"Get out, Max," Alec's voice was low and he didn't even glance at her. She had barely taken three full steps into his room. She folded her arms across her chest and brazenly continued her move further into the room, coming closer to him.
"You're not leaving," she said, and that was when Alec's gaze finally snapped up to look at her. The livid indignation that had his green eyes blazing was enough to stop her in her tracks, but Max kept the indifferent look on her face. "What?"
"I'm not your bitch, Max," Alec zipped the duffle angrily, and slung it over his shoulder. "The order's already been made," he said, picking his handgun up off the dresser by the bed, and not looking at her as he brushed by. Max grabbed hold of his elbow and Alec instantly ripped his arm away, only to have her snatch hold of him by the jacket and jerk him back to her. "Let me go," he demanded quietly, glaring over at her with enough anger that she was almost inspired to do what he said. Almost.
"No. What are you doing, Alec? You can't just leave," she insisted, eyes wide, and she was torn between being angry or shocked or hurt or maybe a combo of all three. "This is our home," the tired argument left her lips again and Alec rolled his eyes, "We have to stay. People might need our help."
"I'm not a hero," Alec bit. "And I'm not going to be the sidekick, either."
"You can't just leave," Max repeated weakly.
"Watch me," Alec snapped and shoved her off, heading for the door.
"Finally grew a pair?" Mole taunted as Alec walked over to where he was waiting with Joshua, Dix, and a couple of X6s. Alec didn't respond and Mole laughed, clapping the man on the back, "Man up, Princess, you can cry into your pillow when we're in Canada." Mole bent down and easily pushed aside the sewer grate, letting the X6s disappear down into the sewer before he did.
"Man up," Joshua offered helpfully with a smile that Alec didn't return. The larger man watched Alec stall, the blond's eyes searching around as if he were waiting for someone. "Alec all right?" Joshua asked after a moment and that was when Alec finally managed to snap back into reality. She wasn't going to come. Dix disappeared into the sewer and Alec stepped over after him.
"I'm always all right, Josh," Alec patted the dog man on the shoulder before following after Dix. Joshua didn't buy it, but he followed anyway. What else was there to do?
"Max, just go, we can keep in touch," Logan insisted, but Max shook her head, hugging her arms close to her body as she stared out the empty remains of Terminal City.
"This is my home," she said quietly, and Logan placed a gloved hand on her shoulder for comfort. The latex touch didn't do much, but Max was glad for it. She should have known. They were just doing the only thing they knew. There was a threat and they reacted accordingly. Maybe Mole had been right. Maybe it was safer for them to go to ground instead of making a stand, maybe it wasn't wrong for them to want to live their lives on their own terms and not try to fight. She even understood why Joshua wanted to go. They were his friends. He could see the world, even if was only because he was on the run.
But Alec… she hadn't expected Alec to leave. He was supposed to always been there. That stupid thorn in her side with his talking and his breathing and his laughing and his always being there and having her back. Alec was supposed to stay because she was staying. He was supposed to have her back.
"I'm glad you're staying, Max," Logan offered in a comforting tone, and Max managed a small, weak smile for him as all she could think was He wasn't supposed to leave.
White singled her out not even a week after the mass exodus. She had been digging around in one of the abandoned genetics buildings in Terminal City, looking for any information that might help her continue the search for the cure with Logan. The same technology that ended up getting Biggs lynched was the same technology that resulted in Max's capture. She put up a fight, but in the end, with White's inability to feel pain, and a couple of men with tasers, there wasn't much she could do.
"452, we meet again," Ames White swaggered into the room, cold blue eyes and a creepily smug expression on his face. He had to appreciate the similarity of the situation. Once before, he had 452 chained up before him, and here she was again. Only this time, he didn't have his stupid little brother to ruin things.
"Can't say it's a pleasure," Max drawled, wishing she could get the sawdust feeling out of her mouth and wishing her body would stop aching for the beating she'd endured trying to escape.
"Neither can I," Ames said nonchalantly. "Looks like all your little buddies cut and run," he commented and Max kept her expression blank, "That makes it hard for me to do my job, 452."
"Sucks for you," she quipped, only to have electricity race through her body as White jammed a taser into her ribs. He held it against her for a few seconds before pulling away, his expression still smug, his demeanor still casual as Max panted and tried to catch her breath.
"Where's my son?"
"Wouldn't know," she barely had time to finish the comment before he hit her again.
"I'm losing patience," White warned. As was the Conclave. His desire to find his son was costing him valuable trust and he was losing ground quickly, something had to give and something had to give sooner rather than later. Even if 452 wouldn't tell him where his son was, her friend Cale would be able to. Five minutes of interrogation where no ground was gained and the only change was the fact White had lost his patience four minutes ago.
Tossing the taser aside, White reached behind him as Max flinched at the sound of the taser clattering on the floor. He pulled out a handgun and looked it over in his hand. For the first time, Max felt a rush of fear, the chill racing down her spine and forcing her heart into double time. "Like I said," White clicked the safety off and leveled it, point blank, directly between Max's eyes. "I'm losing patience."
For a handful of seconds, she was staring cross-eyed at the barrel of the gun, her mind a frightening blank in the face of death, and in the next, there was a flash of movement, a loud shot in her ear, and then a puff of cigar smoke. It took several seconds for Max to realize that cavalry had come, and she only vaguely registered White's body at her feet, and she wouldn't realize until later that they'd actually killed him.
"Look at that: perfect timing," Mole's gruff voice filled her ears and Max thought she might cry with relief at the sound. A moment later, Alec's face filled her line of vision, and she'd never been so happy to see that stupid, jackass grin on his face. Mole had given him hell for it, but Alec couldn't help it; he couldn't leave her.
He made quick work of freeing Max from the chains, and he winked at her, "Guess that makes me a hero."
