DISCLAIMER: Its not mine

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I'm not happy with Name but after struggling with it all day I've decided to just post it. . Sorry if it sucks.

MIND

Alec stood beside Max's grave marker long after everyone else, even Joshua and O.C., had sought shelter from the freezing Seattle rain. He'd loved her and he'd never actually said the words out loud to her and now he'd never get the chance.

It was White. Wasn't it always? White had killed Annie. White had fed the hysteria that caused a mob to kill Biggs. In the end it was always White.

He'd managed to grab Maxie right out from under their noses. They'd finally found Sandeman and had worked with him to develop a cure to the pathogen the comet would release using Max's blood. She'd been heavily guarded until then, submitting to round the clock escort only because she knew that the ordinaries would die if something happened to her. She'd submitted to it until the moment Sandeman declared the cure a success.

Max, by nature, was a loner. She had few close friends and valued her time alone. Alec had known what a strain it had been for her to always have people with her. None of them had been surprised when she'd taken off for her high place. No one had objected because it was within Terminal City. She should have been safe. She wasn't.

Somehow White had gotten her and after days of frantic searching Logan had called in, pale and shaking and shown them all a video recorded by a hoverdrone. They watched helplessly as White shot a badly beaten Max in the head before turning the gun on the drone. They hadn't recovered her body, though they'd tried like hell. All of the residents of Terminal City were cremated, not just because there was no where to bury them but because none of them wanted to take the chance that they'd be dug up and experimented on even in death.

Max's death had hit them all hard. Even Mole, as stoic as them come, had shed a tear as he watched the footage Logan had found. Some good had come of it though. It had enraged the transgenics and without Max there to temper them, they had become what Manticore had intended them to be. They had gone after the snake cult and had left nothing but blood and death in their wake.

The fall out from their crusade might have been enough to convince the government to end them but the comet had come, the people had started to fall ill, and only Max's cure had been able to save them. When Sandeman stepped forward and finally told the world about the cult, the pathogen, and Max, public opinion had largely turned in their favor. There would always be those that didn't hold anything but hatred and contempt for them.

Their war with the familiars, the distribution of the cure, and their fight for acceptance had taken precedence, now almost seven months after her death, they had finally been able to lay Max to rest, symbolically at least.

Alec didn't know when he'd started to cry, tears had mingled with rain and it was only when he'd tasted salt on his lips that he'd realized. He wasn't ashamed of his tears. He didn't care that soldiers didn't cry. He had lost Max, the only woman he would ever want as his mate, his best friend.

"Alec…"

He heard her voice, his head jerked up and he looked around wildly. It had been quiet, barely above a whisper, but he had heard it. He had heard Max. He could have sworn he'd heard Max. Realizing what he was thinking, he laughed and the sound held no humor at all. Max was dead and he was losing his mind. Just like Ben.

"Alec…please…" her voice called again.

She was begging him and she sounded so tired. He shook his head, tried to push the thought that he could hear her away. He didn't want to go crazy.

"Alec I'm not dead…you have to find me, I can't hold on much longer."

OOOOOOOOOO

Alec had left Terminal City in a hurry. He hadn't told any of them where he was going, he just left. He'd stopped long enough to tell Mole he was in charge and to hug Joshua and then he was gone. That had been almost a year ago.

They had all known how he felt about Max. The only people that were blind to it had been Max and Alec themselves. When he left most of them didn't hold on to much hope that he'd ever come back. The city had grieved for both of their leaders. It had hit Joshua and Mole hardest of all, because those two, more than anyone else, wondered if Alec could live without Max.

Which is why walking into the command center and seeing him sitting on Mole's desk came as such a shock. No one knew what to say and he was staring off into space with such a faraway look they were almost afraid to speak.

Joshua was the one that broke the silence. "Alec…?" He questioned softly.

It was like watching Alec come alive. His head came up slowly. His eyes found Joshua and bit-by-bit they focused on him until they were lit from within. They sparkled with mischief and he looked like the old Alec, the one they'd known before Max had died.

"Hey big fella." He replied with a grin, like he'd never been gone, like no time had passed.

"Where've you been Princess?" Mole asked, finally finding his voice, only the way his teeth were clamped down on his cigar indicated that he was upset.

"Oh, you know, here and there. Had to go rescue Max."

Every eye in the room was on him then and every one of them was sure that he'd snapped like his twin had, that the insanity had been genetic after all. He'd shocked them speechless again.

He could see the way that they were staring at him in horror. He knew what they were thinking. Just then he heard her voice echo through his head and he smiled, the faraway look they'd found him wearing slipped back into place. He closed his eyes, and a small smile tugged up the corners of his lips. He looked like a man in love.

"She's coming. She says she's ready to come home." He told them.

Joshua was shaking his head. "No Alec. Little fella is gone. We saw her die." He was sad; his worst fear, that he'd lost his medium fella, was coming true, just not the way he'd expected. He wasn't losing him to death; he was losing him to a disease in his mind.

Alec's eyes opened again and it was the same sort of slow awakening as before. "We saw what White wanted us to see." He said it gleefully, like a child with an amazing secret.

His head tilted to the side, as though he was listening to something that none of them could hear and Joshua reached out and shook him, trying to draw him back from the brink of insanity. "Little fella gone, Alec."

"No, I found her. I saved her. I finally told her that I love her." He confided with a smile, his head still cocked to the side, explaining but clearly distracted by what was going on in his own head. "It took time. It took a long time. She had to heal; she had to learn how to control it. But she's back, she's ready to be home."

Looks passed between transgenics and transhumans that were helpless and fearful, it was worse than they'd feared and then the impossible happened and it was like the world moved in slow motion for all of them.

The door to command opened and Max came walking in. She had scars. And it was almost impossible for a transgenic to be hurt badly enough to scar. And she walked with a limp. But it was her and it looked like Alec wasn't crazy after all. They all heard her voice whisper through their minds as she said, "I've missed you."

NAME

Max had never really been good at coming up with names. She'd chosen her own. She'd been the one to decide that her unit needed names. Zack had fought the idea at first; it was he said, an act of insubordination. But she'd picked the name Max and whenever they were alone she wouldn't answer to anything else. It wasn't long before they all had names; Zack had never been able to deny her anything.

She'd chosen Alec's name too but he had so much personality that he'd practically named himself. She still laughed every time she pictured him answering to her second choice, Dick.

But other than those two names, her choices had been…well; bad was one way to put it. Fixit? Bullet? Zero? These weren't good names, even if they had fit at the time. She wouldn't have wanted to get stuck with them if she'd been in those kid's shoes.

So when she'd found out that she was pregnant, she hadn't been afraid of not being a good mother, everyone told her it was instinctual. She'd been afraid of saddling her kid with a name that would make them grow up to hate her.

She'd poured over the book of baby names that Logan had bought for her for hours. She'd tested each name out loud and had given serious thought to the meaning behind the names that she'd liked. She'd picked two that she'd been relatively sure wouldn't be too embarrassing but as she laid on the hospital bed in Terminal City's med bay, the fear had come rushing back in. What if she picked a name and the other kids made fun of her child for it?

The door flew open and she let out a gasp of surprise but seeing who it was her whole face lit up. There was Alec, looking even more terrified than she felt. He was breathing hard and looked a little pale, she knew he'd been out on a supply run when they called to tell him that she was in labor. From the looks of things he hadn't bothered to wait for them to drive back but had blurred the whole way instead. She started to giggle at the image but a particularly vicious contraction stole her breath.

Alec rushed to her side and grabbed her hand and suddenly she knew it didn't matter what they named their child. Anyone that made fun of them wouldn't live to regret it.