Thanks, everyone, for all the great reviews! - I owe you a new chapter, so let's get on with the story now, shall we?
Max sounded urgent. "Listen, Logan," he heard her say, "I can't explain this right now, but you can't bring her with you, at least not to the hospital. Geez, why did you have to bring her at all? And Josh... - What did you tell Asha? Did you tell her that this is about Alec?"
"Um, not exactly," he said and it was the truth.
"Good. Don't. You hear me, Logan? Don't mention that this is about him."
Logan improvised. Looking at Asha, he said by way of explanation, "Max says she can't really talk right now."
"But Logan, I only want her to tell Ray-"
"Hold on," he interrupted her and directed his focus back to Max.
"Don't say anything to her, Logan, okay?"
"Uh, sure thing, Max." He paused, even though Max didn't say anything back. He barely heard her breathe. It would probably be wise to let her know why he had brought Asha to begin with, it might calm her down a bit. "Listen, that guy Ray? He's been helping some of the local S1W members in the past - Asha was actually the one recommending him. She says he's a good guy, and he knows the right people."
"Crap," he heard Max say and he tensed. "He's S1W? That's friggin' fantastic!"
"Well, no, he isn't, actually," he informed her, and wondered whether that would make her feel any better. He couldn't even begin to wrap his mind around her odd behavior. "He only helped them in the past."
"I hope that's true; I really hope that's true... - I gotta go, Logan. Remember, don't tell her-"
"Anything. Right. - I'll do that, I'll tell her thanks from you. - See you in a bit, Max." With that he hung up.
What the hell was that? Max had made him feel uneasy. Now that he thought about it, it did seem a little rushed that he had just aquiesced to both Asha's and Josh's insistent demands to come to Portland with him. He had only wanted to help Max. Now he kind of got the feeling that he might have made things even worse.
And what about Asha had made Max seem so reserved, nearly hostile toward her? She was their friend.
Right?
Eight months earlier...
"Alec!" Max was snapping her fingers in front of his face, jolting him out of his stupor. He nearly jumped.
"What?"
With her head cocked to the side, she looked at him strangely. "Are you alright?" She asked him. He could tell how reluctantly she had asked that question; yet even now that she was angry at him she simply couldn't NOT care about him. He smiled at the thought.
"If I said I wasn't, would you stop being mad at me and just accept my apology?"
"Apology?" She grinned, a little devilishly.
Darn, had he really just said that? Dumbass. He wanted to deny it; instead, he nodded sheepishly and smiled at her lopsidedly. A devilishly happy Max who thought she had the upper hand on him was still better than a pissed off Max who hated his guts.
Again, she hit his head, but more playfully this time, and said: "I'll think about it. - Now be a good little transgenic and say hi to our new friends here. This is Rex, Kevin..."
Alec had gotten up and now shook first Rex's hand, then Kevin's. The two guys nodded at him. Then he found himself mere inches from the tall female transgenic and looked up into her face. She was one tall chick.
"Fawn," the brunette introduced herself before Max could do it and she stuck out her hand to shake his. For a few seconds, all Alec could do was stare. Max read something else into it, for she suddenly jolted him out of his stupor by saying,
"Do me a favor? Don't start hitting on her; you'd just look ridiculous. You'd be way in over your head. Literally." She stifled a chuckle.
"Hello, Fawn, I'm Alec," he eventually managed and shook her offered hand, strangely mesmerized. Geez. What the hell was wrong with him?
So her name was Fawn. It didn't sound the least bit familiar. Yet she was the one he had seen in his flashbacks, he was sure of that now. Besides, names didn't mean much, not back in the day. He had probably only known her by her designation. If she had had one...
Did she remember him, too? He locked gazes with her, unblinkingly staring into the depths of her pupils. He couldn't detect anything, no recognition, no acknowledging their shared transgenic background, nothing.
"Nice to meet you."
Darkness threatened to envelop his mind.
PsyOps had made him forget the entire assignment, their failure. PsyOps had made him forget her, and now she was here.
Had she been PsyOps? Was she still?
[The present]
Things rushed by Alec as if they were part of a hazy dream; whitish walls, glass doors, people. While a constant dull murmur filled his ears, his eyes were filled with a too bright light. He tried to turn his head, to look for Max. But he had lost the grip on her hand a long time ago and was now floating freely in this strange land of half-consciousness and hospital surroundings.
Everything was only cotton, and pain; and coldness. Now that her warm hand was no longer clasping his, he was actually freezing. He knew that wasn't logical or even possible. The touch of one small hand couldn't have such an effect on his sense of temperature. He knew that. And yet he wanted it back, that touch that kept him grounded. Looking for her dark head bobbing up in a sea of faceless strangers, he felt like he was drowning.
He was dimly aware of strangers sticking needles into him, shining flashes of cruelly bright light into his already hurting eyes. He heard them talk; whether to each other or to him, he couldn't be sure. All he could make out was nonsensical gibberish. He knew this wasn't Manticore, but he couldn't quite fight down the urge to fight them off. His arms were lashing out as if of their own accord, his legs were kicking at anything, until his glazed eyes finally discovered Max, until the touch was back, Max's hand in his, and he knew he was safe. This wasn't PsyOps. This wasn't Reindoctrination - or she wouldn't be here holding his hand. As long as she was with him, he knew he could let go.
He smiled at her before his eyes eventually rolled back into his head and all went blissfully dark around him once more.
He had said something to her; in the back of the ambulance Alec had said something. He hadn't really wanted to tell her anything, she knew that. But he had anyway, because he trusted her.
"Don't tell them anything," he had muttered, his gaze too unfocused to linger on her face for longer than a second.
"Tell them what, Alec? Who?" Her questions had been quiet, gentle, just like her hold onto his hand. He had squeezed hers, though, with sudden vehemence. A bright fever in his eyes, he had sounded urgent when he said, "They'll already know I escaped… They have their ways; people like them always have, you know that. But," and here he had suddenly tried to lean forward, prevented only by Ray, the paramedic, who had carefully placed a hand on his chest to hold him down. At least she had been pretty certain by then that neither of the paramedics suspected who their patient and his companion really were. They were still acting too carelessly around them, not like they were in the company of genetically enhanced super soldiers.
Ray had exchanged a meaningful glance with Max, which she had taken as a cue to bend down over her injured friend until her lips nearly touched his ear. Then she had whispered, "Stay calm, Alec. I don't think these guys should know we're Manticore. Let them take out that bullet and then we'll leave. - You're gonna be alright."
The look he'd given her, she was sure it would haunt her for days—maybe even weeks to come. So lost and uncertain; so young. So not like him.
"I'm sorry," he had said. "I shouldn't… she probably didn't even know, Max. Don't think she did."
Was he talking about Asha? Max wondered, yet she hadn't dared interrupt him.
"We can't let them go on with it, Maxie," he had continued whispering, his ragged intakes of breath coming in quick succession. His bad state had been starting to seriously worry her by then. He was X5, after all, he shouldn't be that much affected by a stupid bullet wound.
The paramedic had drawled out a simple warning, "Take it easy, dude." But Alec hadn't even acknowledged the other man's presence. Instead, he had gone on talking. "Quite smart of them, the way they're going about it, don't you think? No one could ever suspect..." He had grinned at her then, too weak to chuckle. Max hadn't thought it a laughing matter, anyway. Too quickly he had turned all serious again, though, staring at her out of hollow eyes, disturbingly apologetically. Sighing, he had seemed to be making up his mind, before starting to talk again. "In my apartment…," he had said.
Those had been the last words he managed to say to her. He had failed to tell her any more, just that: In my apartment... But what about his apartment? What was in it?
Max had to find out what had happened to Alec. She would find his apartment and search the place until she found whatever it was that he had wanted to tell her; if it was the last thing she did.
Watching Alec now, lying there, having strangers in scrubs working on him, Max had to fight the impulse to just grab him and rush out of the hospital. It all looked too much like Manticore's lab rooms. This all seemed way too familiar. But she managed to stay put and not let her instincts take over, at least for the moment. Manticore was gone, after all, burned to the ground. Whatever Alec had gotten involved in, it couldn't get any worse than anything Manticore had ever done to them.
If only she knew what Alec had discovered. What would it mean for her, for Logan, for Asha?
Logan…
Barely had she let the whispered name roll off her lips, when suddenly she saw him enter the hospital's entrance hall, followed by Joshua, his head hidden under a wide hoodie. Logan discovered her almost instantly. With a worried frown marring his features, he headed her way. An honest frown, it seemed to be.
Or was it?
