Disclaimer: I don't own it

A/N: ok, here's the next chapter. Like I said, it skipped a day, but there are flashbacks, so enjoy

Chapter 4: 11 days ago

Max strolled into work, late as usual, and casually glanced around, trying to hide her real reason for looking around the area. She frowned slightly when she didn't see him, and she thought back to yesterday.

"Hey boo, you got here just in time, Normal was talking bout firing your ass again when Golden Boy called, distracted him." Max snorted, before the words sunk in.

"Alec called? Why?" She asked, trying to act casual, but failing miserably she noted from OC's raised eyebrow. She praised her roommate when she didn't comment though.

"He's not comin in today, he's sick." Max's eyes narrowed, but she didn't say anything. If that was how he wanted to the handle the situation, not that there was a situation to handle, but still. If that was how he wanted to handle the non-existent situation, then fine.

She had accepted his absence the day before, but this was ridiculous. They were adults, they should be able to handle this like adults! Not that there was anything to handle, she reminded herself, before she put him from her mind and went about her normal routine.

Across town, Alec was just waking up. He'd stumbled in to bed around two last night, after taking his friend out drinking. Drinking usually didn't do much to him, what with his transgenic metabolism and all that, but he'd drunk a lot last night, and he hadn't slept for very long. But hey, he'd been catching up with his friend, they had a lot to talk about.

He woke to the sound of knocking on his door, and cursed whoever it was, rolling over and hoping they'd take the hint and leave. He sighed when the knocking stopped a few minutes later, but after a few seconds of silence, he heard his door open and someone stepped into his apartment. He sat up, instantly awake, and reached for his pants.

He stepped out into his living room, and jumped at the person. He fought back, and when the person fought back with almost equal strength and speed, he was confused. So he threw himself into it, and managed to pin him down after a few minutes. He looked at the face, and the anger in his eyes changed swiftly to confusion, surprise and finally delight.

"624?"

"Actually, it's Scout."

"Scout?" Alec raised an eyebrow at the man below him, before he laughed and stood up, holding his hand out, helping his friend to his feet. "What are you doing here?"

"Ah, you know, nothing much, just in town, thought I'd see if there was anyone from the old unit here. And here you are." Alec grinned, he hadn't seen any of his unit since Manticore burned, he hadn't known who'd made it out.

"So, you want a beer?" he asked, and Scout raised an eyebrow.

"You have to ask?" And Alec laughed; same old 624.

"So tell me, what have you been up to the last few months? Have you seen anyone else from the unit?"

As he stepped out of his bedroom into his living room he saw Scout was still asleep on the couch. He was face down, one leg up on the top of the couch, same with one arm, while the other arm was flopped over the edge, his hand brushing the floor. He grinned at the sight, then got a sneaky idea. If he was suffering, Scout could suffer along with him.

"On your feet soldier!" he snapped, and laughed as Scout fell off the couch before jumping to his feet, saluting before he realised what was going on. When he remembered where he was, he lowered his hand, giving Alec the finger as he did so. Alec laughed at his reaction, and ducked just in time as one of the pillows from his couch came flying at his head.

"Dude, that was so not funny." Scout told him.

"Come on, it was a little funny." When Scout just glared, he shrugged. "Ok, so it was funny for me. You'd be laughing if you did it to me. So how's the head? Even for a transgenic, you consumed a lot of alcohol last night." Scout just grinned.

"And even for a transgenic, I have a really fast metabolism."

"Speaking of metabolisms, do you want breakfast? Or is it lunch?"

"Sure. Hey, don't you have to work or something? You mentioned last night, what was it... Jam Pony?"

"Well yeah, but Normal, the boss, he loves me." He said it with a grimace that confused Scout.

"Wait, is Normal a girl or a guy?" He asked.

"A guy."

"Right. So who's the hot black chick?"

"Original Cindy."

"Right, so Sketchy's the guy who always loses pool and Max is 452, your breeding partner?"

"Right. So yeah, Normal loves me, so when I called yesterday and told him I was sick, he told me to take the rest of the week to recuperate. Besides..." he seemed to catch himself before he finished that thought, and quickly changed his tone, although Scout managed to catch it.

"Besides what?"

"Besides, who wants to be at work when they could be hanging out with an old buddy drinking?" He asked, "so how about that breakfast?" Scout knew that wasn't what he was going to say, but he let it drop and nodded.

After her shift finished, Max made her way to Logan's apartment. He'd paged her earlier, so when she got there she walked right in and found him, as usual, typing away on his computer.

"You paged?", she asked, and as always he turned, surprised.

"Hey you." He said, and she gave him a small smile, although her mind was off elsewhere. He started talking, but she wasn't paying attention, she was lost in her thoughts. 'Max? Max!' Hearing her name, she zoned back in and looked at Logan.

"What?"

"I was telling you about an Eye's Only thing, weren't you listening?"

"Sorry, I was thinking about Alec." She saw his face fall, and she quickly added "it's just, he hasn't been at work for two days, he told Normal he's sick and it's weird. Usually if he's not around, it means he's got himself into trouble, which means work for me." She watched as is expression lifted, and strangely, found it annoying that it made him happy that she only cared what to Alec if it affected her. He wasn't that bad... most of the time. Except when he was avoiding problems, like now. She pushed off the wall she was leaning on and stopped Logan mid sentence, he was bugging her anyway, and standing around thinking about Alec was doing nothing. "Hey Logan, I gotta bounce. Promised Joshua I'd stop by and see him tonight, he said he'd make dinner so, see ya." She didn't even bother waiting for a reply, she was gone before he could even process what she'd said.

She arrived at Joshua's 20 minutes later, walking straight in, calling for him. She found him in the living room, painting. "Hey big fella." He turned to look at her and smiled.

"Hey little fella."

"What're ya painting?" She asked walking closer to look at the canvas. It was bright and full of different colours.

"Cindy," he answered with a laugh, and she couldn't help but laugh too.

"So, what have you been doing? Sorry I haven't been around in a few days, it's just been really busy, and Alec's called in sick for the last two days so we've been covering him."

"Alec said he'd come by yesterday, didn't come." He told her, watching her closely for her reaction, which went unnoticed by her. She was angry, and her eyes narrowed. Now he was avoiding Joshua? That was too much.

"Listen big fella, I'm really sorry to do this, but I gotta go, ok? I'll be by tomorrow." And then once again, she was gone.

Alec was sitting on his couch, beer in hand, when his door flew open. He immediately jumped up, spinning around to see who his intruder was. He mentally gave a sigh when he saw it was Max.

"Max, I know why you're here, but really, it's not what..."

"What? It's not what I think?" she interrupted, and he shrugged and nodded. She just scoffed. "Don't give me that crap. You wanna know exactly what I think? I think your stupid ass kissed me the other night, cause you know, your brain doesn't work properly and you don't seem to be able to grasp the concept of normal human behaviour, and after you realised what you'd done, you decided to be really immature and just not show up at work, so the rest of us have to cover you. And it's not even just that, you don't even show up at Joshua's when you told him you'd be there. You know how much he looks up to you, god knows why, and you can't even stop being immature for ten minutes to go see him?" She finally finished her rant and Alec was about to respond when the bathroom door opened and Scout walked out. He was about to say something when he noticed Max. Quickly surveying the situation, he looked between Max and Alec and grinned, but wisely kept his mouth shut. Alec spoke instead.

"Like I was trying to tell you Max, it's not what you think. This is Scout, we were in the same unit back at Manticore. He showed up yesterday morning out of the blue, we spent the day catching up, and well, we got home really late last night, and we drank a lot, so I was tired today. I'll be back at work tomorrow, bright and early, unfortunately. And as for Joshua, well I was talking to Scout and forgot. I'll drop by the big guy's house tomorrow. Satisfied?" In her defence, she managed to compose herself very quickly before answering.

"Whatever. Just don't let it happen again, it's a pain in my ass having to cover you cause you couldn't drag yourself out of bed." He rolled his eyes as she finished, and decided it was wiser not to respond. Instead, he just nodded and waited for her to walk back out the door, slamming it shut behind her.

Scout watched the interaction between the two with interest; it seemed he had found the 'besides' Alec had mentioned earlier, and a feisty one she was.

"So that's Max?" He said after a minute, and Alec looked at him, and sighed.

"Yep, that's her." Despite the exasperation in his voice, Scout could hear something else... something that sounded suspiciously like love. He smirked, but he quickly hid it when Alec said "What're you smirking about?" He cleared his throat, and grinned.

"The look on Max's face when she saw me... that was pretty funny. What did she think was your reason for not going to work?" He saw the way Alec's eyes suddenly looked away from him, and he recognised the evasive tactic when Alec said "She just thought I was being lazy, so how about that food?" He let it slip, and began plotting.

A/N: I know, not my longest work, but hopefully you like it. Let me know, hit that review button.