A/N: Well here's the next one. Hopefully you guys think I listened to your reviews and find this chapter more substantial. If you can't guess already who the dead dude is then you don't deserve to know! Okay, maybe I'm joking but I do think the clues here are pretty obvious! Anyways, let me know what you think.

Chapter 4

There it was. The unmarked spot where they had left his body. They had known his people would come for him. Would probably give him the twisted proper sending off they thought he deserved. But Alec had no time to consider what they might have done with him after he and Joshua had broken him.

He stood, staring, eyes transfixed at what was, to many other eyes, an unremarkable section of the pebbly beach. Alec didn't suppose it could really be called a beach because seeing it, the rather ugly view, and being there, surrounded by warehouses and industrial buildings sending clouds of dirty grey fumes into the already cloudy skies of Seattle, didn't connate the usual beach side associations.

After all, nothing in the world had value without interpretation. Without subjection by society. Without conditioning by individuals And of all the people he could have omitted to prevent the death of, it had to be him. Of all the stupid, reckless, thoughtless acts he knew meant nothing to Max, he had to pick the one that was not only of value to her, but which he had absolutely no right to take from her.

Alec bent down and picked up a pebble that did not stand out from the thousands of others under his feet and along the stretch of shore. But he picked it up and threw it into the water, sending angry ripples through the otherwise calm surface.

Those ripples were not angry enough and he picked up another, a bigger pebble, not smooth like the first one, but rough and ugly, yet to be sanded down by nature. With all the hurt, upset, anger and self hatred in him, Alec hurled it at the waters, punishing the innocent calm for his own misdeeds.

He wanted to scream, to cry out and let the world feel his bitter, bitter hatred of himself. To know how heavy his heart felt, the heart he had worked so hard to protect lest anyone break it. Only he had forgotten to protect it from himself, hadn't thought he might be the one to inflict on it the measure of his betrayal.

But Alec refused to scream, to cry out and let the world feel his bitter, bitter hatred of himself. He didn't deserve to have the world bear his burden, didn't deserve the pain to let up. He deserved nothing than to keep the unrelenting weight selfishly to himself. Every breath he took never seemed to leave, only adding to the pressure that did not cease to build in the pit of his stomach.

Alec fell to his knees, his head in his hands as flashes of the events of only five days ago played in his mind's eye.

It had all been a coincidence. They hadn't known he would be there when they had taken the shore route back to Terminal City. They had come from Sandeman's house that was now Logan's base of operations. Joshua had wanted to feel the familiar safety that so called Father's house provided. It was his first home outside Manticore after all.

But there he had been. A car had driven away, leaving him behind. He hadn't looked best pleased. As he turned to get into his own car, he had caught a glimpse of them. The recognition was instant.

Alec hadn't slowed his pace any. He had no fear for this man. He was only one man. Even if his existence served only to put a thorn in Alec's side. And Max's at that. Still, neither fear nor ill feeling. Alec liked to think he was a pretty easy going guy. People very rarely got under his collar. They might irritate him slightly, draw a snarky comment from him, but on very seldom occasions did he rise to the bait.

He had forgotten about Joshua though.

And before he knew it, Alec was staring at a broken body, lying lifeless on the pebbles he now stood over, unable to get the image out of his head. It wasn't the face of a dead man looking back at him, but the face of what he had let happen, the betrayal that had taken place with the man's death.

Confusion raked his conscience. It had not been at his hands; for all intents and purposes he was completely blame free. He had neither counselled, procured nor advised, as a criminal court might find for intention to commit murder. Yet he had known the second the act was done, that the fault lie almost exclusively at his feet.

Not because she held him responsible for what Joshua did. She had come far from suffocating him in a blanket of over protectiveness. Max had realised at some point that while he may not be as technically trained as she was either mentally nor physically, Joshua was still a hybrid capable of independent thought. And as such, had a good grasp of the consequences of his actions.

No, the fault lay with him because she had come to trust him to do the right thing. And if it meant being responsible and making sure Joshua didn't do the wrong thing then so be it.

She never spoke of it, nor ever even showed it often but somewhere along the way Alec had come to acknowledge that there were certain things Max expected of him. Screwing up was still taken for granted, she hadn't thought he would change that drastically. But she did expect him to pick a side when it came to a crunch between transgenic and his own self-serving ends. She expected him to come through for a friend, transgenic or not, and whatever the price to himself. She expected to be able to rely on him. To an extent, she depended on him.

And that expectation had grown to trust. She trusted him to pick a side. To be there for a friend. To rely on him. To depend on him. She trusted him to be for her.

He of all people had understood better than any just how much it had cost her to give him so much credit, so much of the most precious thing she could give. Alec was Max and Max was Alec in so many ways. And he knew how hard it had been for her to admit she needed him. Just like he needed her.

And he had all but thrown it back in her face. Just as she had tried so hard not to trust him, for the very same reason.

Alec knew if he was capable of tears, he would cry. If he was capable of cowardice, he would run. If he was capable of anymore pain, he would feel it.

But he wouldn't cry, because he wouldn't give in. He wouldn't run, because he owed it to himself, if not to Max, to prove he was a man bigger than his mistake. But most of all, he wouldn't cry and he wouldn't run, because to do neither would be to keep his pain in.

To keep his pain in, would be to hurt more.

And he knew no matter howhurt he might feel, it still wasn't enough.