Gone
By Inzane
Disclaimer: Don't own Dark Angel.
Summary: How much abuse can a guy take before he snaps? Events in Hello, Goodbye take a different turn. AU from that point.
A/N: I guess the smooth sailing is over. This chapter decided to fight me as I wrote it. I guess it's my punishment for altering my plotline mid-story, making Alec a lot darker than I originally intended. I'm a bit bruised and battered, and my laptop may never be the same, but I think I won in the end. Maybe.
Warning: Language, violence, with a little Scary Alec thrown in for fun.
Chapter 7: Never Again
"Where the hell is she?"
Logan, glancing nervously down at his watch, blurted out the question for the fifth time. He had opened the collar of his white dress shirt; his bow tie was undone, the ends dangling. Original Cindy had thought that it was impossible for someone to pace inside a van, but somehow, Logan seemed to manage it. He couldn't sit still. He moved from the driver's seat, to the back of the van, moving side to side, then repeating the process all over again. He was just coming back up front when Original Cindy finally got tired of it and gave him a shove, causing him to land with a hard thump on the driver's seat.
"You gotta calm down, Logan. Goin' crazy not gonna help Max at all. We need to sit here and wait this bitch out. Only been thirty minutes or so." Thirty-three to be exact, but who was counting?
"But she could be hurt. He could have hurt her. We need to..." Logan started to get up, but OC reached over and gave him another shove, followed by a stern look that had him freezing in his seat.
"Alec will not hurt her. Max believes it, and I believe in Max. And so should you. Gettin' all bent ain't gonna change it, aiight? Max is a big girl. She can take care of herself."
She could see Logan's body was tensed, almost vibrating with a need to do something. If Max didn't show up soon, she was afraid that she wouldn't be able to hold Logan back. Hell, she might join him if it came to that.
"Look," OC continued, "no way we can get back in now without makin' 'em all suspicious-like, and we don't even know where Max and Alec are. You go after 'em, you could screw up their chance to make it out clean. Just wait a little longer, Logan. They'll be here."
Original Cindy tried to meet Logan's eyes, but they were hidden for a moment as the light from the street lamp outside the van glinted off his glasses, turning them momentarily into mirrors. When he shifted and she could see his eyes clearly, she knew that she had failed to get through to him.
"You just gotta trust her, Logan," OC pleaded, afraid that he might do something to get himself, or Max and Alec, killed.
Logan's jaw clenched as his hands tightened into fists. He knew he should listen. Trust her, trust her, you've got to trust her, he told himself. But he couldn't get the image of Alec's dead eyes as he snapped that man's neck, couldn't get the last image he had of Max, looking so delicate and beautiful, out of his head.
"I'm sorry, I can't," he said, and placed a hand on the door handle, prepared to get out of the van and do whatever it took to help Max.
The moment Logan's hand touched the handle, the back door of the van flew open. Both Logan and Original Cindy jumped in their seats, then turned in unison to look out the back of the van.
Max stood outside the back door, partially bent over as she had Alec over her shoulder in a fireman's carry. As a transgenic, she had no trouble with the weight initially, but lugging him up two flights of stairs had begun to wear down even her transgenic strength. Alec's greater height had also been a bit hard to handle, making him an awkward burden. Logan and OC watched, mouths open in shock, as Max unceremoniously dumped Alec off of her shoulder onto the floor of the van.
Max rested for a moment, placing both hands on the bumper of the van and leaning heavily against it, head hanging down. She was worn out. The remaining guards had been a piece of cake--they were almost pathetic, really. The Russian Mafia apparently hadn't expected infiltration from the inside, and certainly hadn't been expecting a woman in evening wear to kick their collective asses.
Carrying Alec had actually been hardest part, since she gave up dragging him after the first two minutes. It was too difficult, and left her back exposed. During the trek up the stairs, she had paused long enough to put her hair back up in a haphazard bun so it would be out of her face, and during her journey several sweaty strands had escaped to hang down, clinging to her face and neck. She had also tied the ends of her dress around her waist so she wouldn't trip over it. All in all, as she wearily climbed into the back of the van, letting herself collapse beside Alec's prone form, she knew she looked a mess.
"Go," she said in a tired voice, panting slightly. "We gotta blaze before someone comes across the guards I knocked out."
When Logan sat there, frozen, still staring at Max in wide-eyed shock, Max rolled her eyes to Original Cindy, sending her a pleading look. Thankfully, OC was quick to respond and pulled Logan out of the driver's seat, shoving him toward the back.
"Want somethin' done right," OC grumbled as she turned the key in the ignition, "don't ask a man ta do it." With that, she peeled out, picking a direction at random.
Logan moved toward Max, coming to kneel beside her. He reached forward to help her up, then stopped mid-motion when he saw that she had removed the long gloves that had protected him from her touch. He pushed himself backwards, coming to sit with his back to the wall of the van. He couldn't even help her up. He looked down at his useless hands, and felt more helpless at that moment than he had the entire time Max had been gone.
His gaze traveled to Alec, who appeared to be out cold, and then back to Max, who looked like… well, like she'd carried a one-hundred and eighty pound man up several flights of stairs. He tried not to let it bother him how Max's bare arm touched Alec's from shoulder to elbow, how her head was turned slightly toward him, a look of relief on her face.
"What happened?" Logan asked, and he hated that his voice was unsteady.
Max slowly lifted her hand, holding up one finger in a gesture to wait. "Hold that thought," she replied in a voice strained with weariness.
With a grunt, she rolled and pushed herself up to a crouching position. Logan's eyebrows shot up as Max grabbed a hold of Alec's wrists and began to drag him toward the front of the van. When his hands were almost touching the seats, she stopped, then reached over to her bag, dug into a side pocket and pulled out a pair of handcuffs. She slapped one cuff onto his wrist, then wrapped the other one around the undercarriage of the passenger seat before cuffing Alec's other wrist.
Original Cindy, who had glanced back long enough to see Max cuffing Alec, frowned as she navigated the streets of Los Angeles. If it had come to this, then Max must be really worried about what Alec might do. She didn't want to say anything negative, especially since Max had busted her ass to get Alec outta there, so she tried to keep her tone light.
"Boo, not to question your methods or anythin', but isn't that a little kinky for a rescue mission?" The comment was flip, but her voice was slightly strained, betraying her true emotions.
Max straightened as much as she could in the back of the van, swaying slightly to compensate for its motion. She then reached down to remove the taser from her leg. "Here, hold this," she said, tossing it to Logan, who made a fumbling catch. He glanced down at the device and then back up at Max, putting two and two together.
"He wasn't in a… umm… cooperative mood. Had to use a little persuasion," Max said casually with a shrug, trying to downplay what had happened. Just thinking about it made her heart rate increase. Thank God she had thought to bring the handcuffs she had stolen from a sector cop a while back. "I gave him a good jolt, so he'll be out for a little while yet. He's … uh… he's not gonna be too happy when he wakes up, so I figured I'd better cuff him."
Her lips turned down slightly as she took in Alec's unconscious form. He looked so peaceful, and so terribly young. She knew that peace wasn't going to last long, and she needed to take care of some business, so she could be prepared for when he woke up and realized what she had done.
"Cin, I need you to find us a hospital. Check the map. I gotta pick up some stuff I'm gonna need to keep him under control. Then we gotta get out of L.A. They'll probably be looking for him. And me."
"That's just perfect. A perfect end to a perfectly wonderful trip," Logan said, letting his head fall back against the side of the van with an audible thud, his voice dripping with sarcasm. Max bristled slightly at the edge in his tone. "And just what exactly are we going to do with him, Max? This isn't the devil-may-care, screw-up, bike messenger we all remember. Are we just supposed to pat his head, take him back to Seattle, and pretend all of this never happened?"
"Not what I had in mind, no," she replied, a little colder than she had intended, but goddammit, Logan's tone was really pissing her off.
Logan pushed himself away from the wall of the van. He crouched and moved toward her, his anger now completely evident on his face. "Well, why don't you clue us in on what you do have in mind, Max. I think Original Cindy and I deserve to know what we are getting into."
"Hey, don't drag me into this," OC called back from the driver's seat. She wanted no part of the inevitable fight that was going to happen. The van suddenly slowed as OC pulled into the parking lot of the closest hospital, which, as luck would have it, had only been a couple of blocks from the fight club. "We're here, Max. Where you want me to park it?"
A deep line carved itself between Max's brows as she frowned at Logan. She continued to stare him down as she called up front to Cindy, "Take it 'round back. See if you can find a service entrance or somethin'."
She tilted her head, and the frown suddenly disappeared as if it had never been there, replaced by a casual, completely unaffected look that made Logan grind his teeth. She was dismissing his concerns--still--and it was pissing him off.
Max plopped down next to Alec, then dragged her bag closer to her and started rummaging. She didn't look at him when she spoke. "I got stuff I need to take care of first, but you and me, Logan, we are gonna have ourselves a little discussion soon enough." As the vehicle rolled to a stop, she pulled a dark shirt out of her bag. "Hop outta the van, will ya? I gotta change."
Logan's face screwed up in incredulity. "I'm not leaving you back here with him."
In the driver's seat, OC cringed at Logan's poorly chosen words. The man really did not know Max at all if he thought that macho shit was gonna work.
Max rolled her eyes at Logan. "Oh, come on. Even if he wakes up in the two minutes it'll take me to change, he's secured. Leave me the taser, if you're so concerned." She lifted her head, and saw something more than concern in his eyes, something possessive that made her instinctively want to rail against it. He hadn't the right.
"And if he does wake up," she added with a huff, "it's not like he hasn't seen it all before." Max had meant her words in the general sense, knowing that Alec had probably seen more naked women in his twenty-one years than most men saw in a lifetime.
Logan spoke before he could stop himself, his anger making him say something he would have normally kept to himself--those niggling fears he had about the nature of Max and Alec's true relationship.
"Has he seen all of you before, Max?"
Up front, Original Cindy's eyes widened, and she pushed open the door hastily. "Okay, I think that'd be my cue to get some air." She hopped out of the van, carefully closing the door behind her in case the noise might jar Alec awake.
Max had stilled at Logan's question, locking her eyes onto his, her own hard. "I'm not even gonna dignify that with a response. Get out."
Realizing he had gone too far, that he had spoken without thought, hadn't filtered his words, Logan stammered, trying to repair the damage. "Max, I sorry. I just..."
"Get out!" Max whispered harshly, closing her eyes. She couldn't bear to look at him right now. She couldn't believe that they had fallen so far from what once was, that this was what they had come to.
She heard the soft clank of noise as Logan lowered the taser to the floor of the van. Only when she felt the van shift, when she heard the back door open and then close, did she open her eyes. Her gaze landed on Alec, and she sighed heavily, leaning over to brush his long, unruly bangs away from his closed eyes.
"You'd better be in there, Alec. Don't make all of this be for nothin'."
She ran her hand through his hair one last time, then straightened as much as she could and slipped the straps of the dress off of her shoulders, letting it drop to the floor of the van. Clad only in very abbreviated lacy white lingerie, she smirked down at him.
"You're gonna be so sorry you slept through this, pretty boy," she muttered, then undid the clasp of her bra. Lace and larceny just didn't go together.
Five minutes later, Max hopped out of the back of the van, clad in a black, skin hugging, long-sleeved shirt, and baggy, low-riding jeans. After a minor battle with a hairbrush, she had managed to straighten out her hair a bit so it didn't look like she had just come from a cat fight. She'd snugged a beanie cap over her head to help keep it out of her way, and the strap from a messenger bag was slung across her chest.
"Okay," she said, addressing Logan and Original Cindy, tossing the taser to Logan, "he's still out, and hopefully he'll stay that way until I get back, but I seriously doubt it. If he even twitches, breathes funny, whatever--don't hesitate; just hit him with the taser. I should be back in fifteen, twenty minutes tops." With that, she took off in a blur.
OC looked at Logan, shrugged, and then climbed into the back of the van. Logan closed his eyes and counted to ten, praying for a little more control over his ragged emotions, then climbed in after her, pulling the door closed behind him.
Once inside, Logan handed OC the taser. She didn't understand why until she saw him reach into a side compartment of his suitcase and pull out a gun.
"Hold up! Hold up!" Cindy cried out, moving between Logan and Alec, holding up her hands. "What the hell you think you're doin' wit' that?! You can't shoot 'im!"
Logan looked at OC intently, his face deadly serious. "I'm not going to sit back here, unarmed, with a genetically engineered super-being who, less than an hour ago, snapped a man's neck like it was a twig. Max may trust him, but I don't. That is not Alec over there. That's a trained killer. A murderer."
OC put her hands to Logan's chest and pushed him back, trying to edge him toward the rear doors of the van. "Maybe you should wait outside, Logan. I'll watch him. I got the taser." The thought of staying alone in the van with Alec was a bit frightening, but she was willing to risk it to make sure that Logan didn't hurt him, or worse, kill him. No matter what Alec had done, he didn't deserve that.
Logan resisted the push. He glanced for a moment at Original Cindy, still clad in her golden dress and heels. She thought she could handle him? He dismissed the idea and moved his eyes back to Alec.
"No," he replied succinctly, training his weapon on the unconscious form of 494. "I'm not trusting our lives to a taser."
OC shook her head and rubbed the back of her neck, which she suddenly realized was achingly tight. This was a side of Logan she hadn't really seen before. When she looked back up at him, looked into those intense blue eyes, she was afraid that Logan just might do it. If Alec even breathed funny, Logan just might pull that trigger.
"You shoot him," OC said slowly, carefully enunciating each of her words to make her point crystal clear, "Max will never forgive you."
Logan's face was a stone as he tightened his grip on the gun. "That's a risk I'm willing to take."
When Logan heard the back door of the van begin to open, he hastily put away his gun, shoving it into the waistband of his tuxedo pants at the small of his back. He quickly covered the gun with his jacket as Max was climbing in the back. He didn't want to have to explain the gun to Max, considering her feelings about them. He also didn't want a confrontation in front of Original Cindy about Max's feelings for the particular individual he'd been pointing the gun at. He knew, sooner or later, they were going to have to figure that one out, but he'd rather not have an audience for that discussion. He glanced up at OC to see if she would rat him out, but she just stared at him, lips twisted in mild disapproval.
As soon as she entered the van, closing the door behind her, Max's eyes went immediately to Alec. She looked at him as she unslung the now bulging messenger bag from her shoulders and pulled the beanie cap from her head, tossing both to the floor. She relaxed slightly when she saw he was still out, but then did a double take. He shouldn't have still been out. Not for this long.
"You taser him again?" she asked, looking up at Original Cindy, hoping that was the reason Alec was out.
"Uh uh," Cindy replied, shaking her head. "Hasn't budged." And thank God for that, OC added silently. If he had, she might have been explaining to Max how Alec had come to be riddled with bullet holes.
Max tensed, going into a crouch at the back of the van. "Shit. The two of you, get out of the van. Now."
Logan, who was near the back of the van, ignored Max's order, instead moving his hand to the small of his back, hovering over his concealed gun, unsure if he should pull it. Original Cindy, who had been sitting next to Alec, planning to taser him if he even twitched so Logan wouldn't shoot him, immediately began to back away and inch toward the end of the van.
Before she could move a foot, Alec's legs suddenly shot out and wrapped around her waist, causing her to let out a yelp as he pulled her to him. The taser she had been holding clattered to the floor, and Max's hand shot out to pick it up. OC struggled to break free, but was no match for Alec's transgenic strength.
"Uh uuuuuh…" Alec drawled, head now lifted and eyes completely alert and staring challengingly into Max's. His biceps bulged as he strained against his bonds, and he tightened his legs, pulling Cindy closer to his body. "You use that on me, you'll hurt her."
Max's grip on the taser tightened. "She'll live," she said with a bravado she didn't feel.
The corner of Alec's mouth twitched lightly. "Oh, I don't know about that. With how long you'll need to use that on me to knock me out again, you could kill her. Or I could snap her in half before you disable me."
Deep inside, he heard a tiny voice whisper Don't, but his survival instinct allowed him to ignore it. Closer to the surface, a much louder voice told him Collateral damage is acceptable.
OC shook her head furiously, still straining against Alec's hold. "Don't listen to him, Max," she said, struggling to get the words out as Alec's legs squeezed her. "He won't do it. He won't hurt me." She cried out when his legs tightened painfully. Oh, God, please let me be right. Please, please let me be right.
"You so sure about that?" Alec asked, directing his question more to Max than to Original Cindy. His voice low and dangerous.
Max felt her blood run cold. Her hands were tied. She couldn't risk Original Cindy, but she couldn't let Alec go. She was locked in a fucking standoff. She had to do something, stall him somehow, distract him so she could get in the messenger bag without him noticing. Yeah, and maybe I could make a few pigs fly while I'm at it.
"Alec…" she said, hoping the sound of his name would have the same affect now as it had before.
At the use of the name that was once his, he smirked, and, dear God, it was Alec's smirk. The same one that had haunted her dreams during the rare times she had actually slept. Despite the seriousness of the situation, despite the fact that her friend's life was in real danger, her heart leapt at the sight of it.
He shook his head slowly, as if chastising her. "That's not going to work a second time, bitch. Now, I suggest you drop the taser and let me out of these cuffs," he accentuated the word by yanking hard on the offending restraints, "or I'll have to return your friend to you in pieces."
Max slowly lowered the taser to the floor of the van, the raised up in a half crouch, hands palm out in the universal hey-I'm-harmless gesture.
"She's your friend too, Alec," Max said. She kept her voice calm and level, a tone that would be recognized by hostage negotiators anywhere. Maybe, if she could remind him enough of the person he once was, she would be able to reach him.
But that, apparently, had been the wrong thing to say.
His eyes went cold and dead, and any hint of expression, of emotion, fell from his face.
"I don't have any friends."
Max's eyes flicked to Original Cindy's, and she could see panic and fear there, but she also saw trust. Now, all she had to do was make sure she was worthy of that trust.
Max fell to her knees, head falling forward as she rested her hands on her thighs. She couldn't wrap her head around it, couldn't make it make sense. Alec was smarter than this. Sure, she'd always accused him of being a screw up, but a lot of that had been just talk. Waiting until she had returned was a tactical error, one she didn't think this new version of Alec would have made. She shook her head, and then raised it, forcing herself to meet that cold gaze.
"I don't get it. It would've made more sense to make a move while I was gone. Why'd you wait until I got back? "
"Why don't you ask your boyfriend, there," he growled, and his gaze shifted to the left.
In all the excitement, Max had almost completely forgotten about Logan. She turned, and her mouth hung open in shock as she saw Eyes Only had a 9MM Beretta trained on X5-494, his finger tense on the trigger. He had drawn the weapon again when Alec had grabbed Cindy, and Max had been too focused on Alec and OC to notice.
A wave of revulsion swept through her at the sight of the gun. Guns brought nothing but pain and death. If Logan fired, Alec could easily move Original Cindy into the path of the bullet. If Alec didn't use Cindy as a shield, Logan could end up killing him. She didn't search for so long and travel so far to lose him now.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Max hissed. "Put that away!" She would have taken the gun from him, but with Logan's finger already on the trigger, she didn't want to risk it.
Logan shook his head ever so slightly and kept his aim true. "I can't do that, Max. He's dangerous. You may be blind to it, but I'm not."
Max felt the tension building in her muscles, urging her to do something. She turned her body so she could keep one eye on Alec, and one eye on Logan.
"You're forcing his hand, Logan. I need to diffuse this situation, and you are just making it worse. Now put down the fucking gun." When he didn't move, Max made a frustrated noise in the back of her throat and ran a hand through her hair. She was beginning to wish she had left his ass behind in Seattle.
"Do you really think I'm gonna stand by and let you shoot him?"
Those words got through to him, and Logan shifted his now uncertain gaze to hers, taking his eyes off Alec for just a moment. But that moment was all Alec needed. In a flash, he unwrapped his legs from around Original Cindy, then drew them back, planted his bare feet in her back and shoved, sending her crashing into Logan and Max.
As OC crashed into him, Logan's finger involuntarily tightened on the trigger, and the gun went off. For a moment, his heart stopped as he thought he had done it, that he had taken a life. For all of his bravado while holding the gun on Alec, he never really prepared himself for the consequences of actually firing a bullet. His heart started beating again when he realized the crash caused his aim to no longer be true, and instead of sinking a bullet into Alec's chest, it hit him in the upper thigh. The X5's only reaction was a grunt. Then he was on the move.
Alec forcefully curled his body, flipping his legs up and bracing his feet against the bottom of the passenger seat while he yanked his cuffed hands back with all of his transgenic might. With a metallic squeal followed by a snap, the undercarriage of the seat gave way, but the force of Alec's pull had also snapped the chain between the two cuffs. He was free.
When Max fell, she had enough presence of mind to throw her body to the side, falling away from Logan and saving his life. As she scrambled out from under Original Cindy, she could see that she was going to be too late. Alec was scrambling over the driver's seat, kicking the door open. She scrambled for the messenger bag she had dumped on the floor, all the time watching Alec, watching him disappear out the door. She only had seconds to follow, or she would lose him. She snagged what she wanted from the bag--a pressure syringe she had already pre-loaded while in the hospital. She rolled and kicked open the back door of the van, and took off after him.
They were two blurs across the parking lot. Alec's bare back made him easy to locate, his skin seeming to glow like a beacon. She began to close the distance. Once she was close enough, she took a risk and leapt. She caught him in a flying tackle, and sent both of them crashing to the ground in a tangle of arms and legs. She felt the stinging burn as her skin was scraped in several places by contact with asphalt. For one crazy moment, as they disengaged and rolled, both coming up into a fighting stance, Max mentally cringed at the thought of Alec's unprotected upper body being torn up by the asphalt. He'd been getting hacked and slashed for God knew how long in that wacked out death fight club, and she was worried about him getting scraped up. Jesus.
Alec stood, panting lightly, the now separated cuffs still circling each wrist. Blood slowly oozed down his leg and from his wrists, where the cuffs had split the skin when he had yanked himself free. He tilted his head at her, much like he had in the ring after he had snapped that man's neck, a challenge in his eyes.
"Why bother, Max? You can't win. I'm stronger than you are." His voice was more animated--more Alec--and she thrilled to hear it. It was dangerous, but maybe fighting with him was the answer. It was something he was used to when they were together, and maybe it called to the part of him that she knew--had to believe--was still somewhere deep inside.
Max gave him a predatory smile, flipped her hair over her shoulder, and raised her fists, prepared to fight.
"Bring it, pretty boy."
Max's predatory smile was answered by his own, and he launched himself at her, turning and letting his foot fly in a spinning kick. Max ducked the blow, then rose up just in time to block as he brought one cuffed hand around in a backhanded blow in an attempt to smash her in the head. She then went on the offensive, launching several blows and kicks. The cuffs on his wrists jangled as they fought, trading a furious barrage of punches, which ended in Alec putting a hand up and catching her fist in his, stopping it mid-blow before it could hit his face.
Max had put all of her might into that punch, and he had stopped it like it was nothing. She took a millisecond to think God, he's strong, before sending her arm blurring behind her, to snag the pressure syringe she had jammed into her back pocket. Her arm blurred back up, and he tried to stop her, to block her, but she blurred her hand under his arm and jammed the syringe against his neck, depressing the plunger at the instant the syringe made contact with his skin.
He knocked her hand away, sending the syringe skittering off into the darkness. Another round of blows followed, but this time, Alec was able to latch onto her right arm. He spun and then flipped her, bringing her down hard on the hood of a nearby car, so hard that the impact shattered the glass of the windshield. He immediately climbed on the hood, looming over her as he straddled her. His left arm was braced by her head, and his right was fisted in her shirt.
"You should have listened to me," he said, and she could see the emotion bleed out of his eyes, becoming flat and lifeless. Alec had left the building.
Suddenly, his eyes clouded and his left arm buckled. He collapsed, falling forward on top of her. Taking in a deep breath in relief, Max grabbed Alec's shoulders, wrapped her legs around his, and rolled them, so that his bare back was against the hood of the car, and she was the one straddling him. He made a weak grab at her, eyes starting to roll, but she grabbed his wrists and forced them up, pinning them above his head. The move brought her face to face with him.
"You may be stronger, Alec," she said, breathing hard, "but I'm faster."
He bared his teeth and slammed his head back against the hood, trying to stay focused, but she could see he was fading. She could see, as his eyes began to unfocus, the fiery anger in his eyes morph into anguish. And this, she thought, was finally Alec.
"Should've killed me when you had the chance..." The words were slurred, and they should have sounded like a threat. Maybe, in a way, they were.
He was afraid. She could hear it in his voice. Afraid of what he might do, if he were allowed to continue on like this. Afraid of what he had become. That he was the threat. But overriding his fear was regret. Regret that she hadn't killed him before he could hurt anyone else.
She felt his muscles go lax, and his eyes began to flutter as he tried to keep them open. He clenched his jaw and forced his eyes open one more time, and those startling hazel-green eyes met hers. And suddenly, she was transported back in time, surrounded by trees and the sound of approaching helicopters, holding a man with Alec's face, with those same eyes staring at her, pleading for the same thing.
"No," she said fiercely, shaking her head to clear the memory of Ben from her mind, to make the sound of his snapping neck go away. She placed her hands on either side of Alec's face, forcing his lolling head back to her, trying to keep him awake for just a moment longer. "I will never go there, you hear me? Never."
She saw the words register, saw his fears overtake him a moment before he sank into oblivion.
"Never again," Max whispered.
Logan ran, gun in hand, frantic to catch up with them. He wished he would have thought to bring his exo--his own human legs couldn't keep up. He saw Max take Alec down with a flying tackle, saw them start to fight. But they were so far away--their transgenic speed had moved their fight well away from the van. He put on an extra burst of speed, utterly panicked, as he helplessly watched Alec flip Max over onto a car. He heard OC's footsteps, somewhere behind him, but he couldn't wait for her. He had to get to Max.
He was breathing hard, heart pounding from fear as much as exertion. He slowed slightly in confusion when he saw Alec fold, saw him fall on top of Max, and then Max flip them over. Then he slowed and came to a complete halt, shocked to see her like that, straddling Alec, her bare hands touching his face. It was so intimate, something he and Max could never do, that he felt a wave of jealousy roll over him again.
He immediately felt guilty for it. Max's life had been in danger, she could have died, and he was feeling something as shallow as jealousy. But even though he felt guilty about it, and even though he knew it was shallow, he couldn't make the feeling go away.
Max turned her head and saw Logan standing there, gun held down at his side. The sight of the gun called to memory the booming sound of it going off in the enclosed van, and suddenly she felt the wet against her leg, blood seeping from the wound on Alec's leg where she straddled him. She scrambled to get off him, then grabbed his leg, taking a look at the wound. He'd been hit in the upper thigh, missing the bone, thank God. She felt underneath him and could feel the exit wound. At least she wouldn't have to dig out a bullet.
"Are you all right?"
Max's head whipped up at Logan's question, fixing him with an accusing glare. She ignored his query, responding with an accusation instead.
"You shot him," she said in an icy tone. She reached up and ripped the sleeves from her shirt, then proceeded to use one as a bandage while wrapping other tight around Alec's leg to try to stop the bleeding.
Logan paused and watched her bandage him, trying to think it all through. It had happened so fast. He hadn't meant to do it.
"It was an accident," he stammered. "He slammed Cindy into me, and… it just went off."
He wouldn't have thought it possible, but Max's glare became even colder.
"So it's his fault, huh?" Her tone was casual, but the meaning behind those words was so painfully not. With Alec's wound bandaged, she jumped off hood and moved in front of Logan, staring up at him.
"You could've killed him, Logan. Or Original Cindy. You think it would've made much of a difference because it was an accident?"
Logan looked pained. "I'm sorry."
"You know how I feel about guns."
God, how could he make her just understand? She used to understand him, or at least he thought she had. But now, the great rift between them seemed to widen with every step they took, every decision they made.
"I just wanted to protect you," he said softly, his tone pleading for her to understand.
Max's lips narrowed to a thin line. "I don't need you to protect me."
They seemed at an impasse, neither willing to break the silence, when Original Cindy came running up beside them, huffing, hand pressed to a stitch in her side.
"Boo," OC panted, "you aiight?"
"Yeah. I'm good," Max replied. "You?" She looked her friend up and down, assessing the damage.
Original Cindy shrugged, all nonchalant. "Just a little banged and bruised is all. Ain't no thing." It certainly was a thing, something that was going to take her a long time to get over, but she didn't have the heart to tell Max that.
Max studiously ignored Logan for the moment, turning her head back to look at Alec. "I knocked him out with a heavy tranq. Stuff they liked to use on us back at Manticore. He'll be down for a good three, four hours. Enough time to get the hell outta here."
She turned back to Logan, and her face was masked with terrible calm. "I need you to get the van. No way I'm hauling his unconscious ass all the way back there."
She stared at him, and he knew she was daring him to argue, to widen the rift. But he just nodded, realizing that he had certainly done enough at this point. He clicked the safety back on the gun, then silently slid it back into the waistband of his pants. He turned and went to get the van.
As he walked away from them, the image of Max straddling Alec flashed again through his mind. He grimaced. He knew he had get over this insane jealousy. He needed to trust her. If he had trusted her eight months ago, when he had seen them together at Crash, maybe none of this would have ever happened. Maybe he and Max would still be together. Maybe, instead of searching for Alec the past eight months, he could have been looking for a cure.
If he just hadn't touched her, maybe he wouldn't feel like a shadow of the man he once was.
A/N: This chapter sort of just snuck in there. It seems this fic just keeps getting longer and longer than I intended. Just my typical inzanity. Hope you don't mind.
Might not be as quick with the updates from this point on--real life intrudes. Work's getting a little hectic... travel and stuff... and since I never learned to juggle three things at once, writing gets dropped so I can still manage to keep family and work in the air. Writing has become an addiction for me, so I'll find some time to fit it in. I'll try not to leave you guys hanging. If you were with me through "The Friggin' Cure" (ahem... shameless plug), you know I'm pretty good on keeping that promise.
Please hit that review button and give me some feedback. The reviews really help when I'm feeling stalled.
