Heat Induced

Author's Note: I have to admit that 'The Berrisford Agenda' is my all time favourite Dark Angel episode. I happen to think it says a lot about me because I am always in tears when I watch it, always hoping that Rachel's actually alive at the end. Alec/Rachel may actually be my OTP. But don't worry, this fic is still Alec/Max.

That said, I'm pretty sure this chapter is crap. Look forward to a twelve-hour update.

Chapter 10

Alec was standing with Sketchy and Original Cindy listening to an argument going on in Jam Pony's back room when Max arrived.

Alec was denying telling Marina that he loved her. "No, no. No, I never said I loved her. That's a cheap ploy and I don't go there. I said that she was a unique creature, unlike any other."

Max laughed. "I knew that was a line."

"Wait," said Sketchy. "He used that on you?"

Max knew what he was getting at. Ever since he'd realised that the baby that Max was carrying was Alec's, he'd bowed to the man's superior seduction talents. Both had, of course, remained tight lipped about how exactly they'd come to have sex. It only made Sketchy more determined to get down to the bottom of how it had happened, why nothing more had happened, and how the two remained friendly.

"Oh, it works like a charm," Alec said as though explaining some new route he could use to shave time off his runs. "I mean, you can almost literally watch them melt."

"But he didn't use it on me," said Max, wanting to make that clear. There was no way that she was ever going to fall for one of Alec's lines. No way in hell.

Normal came out of the back room and Sketchy and OC left them to see to Marina and Little Suki.

When Normal sent Max on a run, Alec got the hell out of there before anyone else could turn her ire on him.

x x x

"Thought you didn't have sex unless it was a transaction," said Max as they rode toward their destination.

"I didn't sleep with either of them," said Alec. "How is it my fault if they think a little friendly flirting is a promise of forever?"

Max didn't want to know. "Shut up and ring the buzzer."

Alec stared at the buzzer as it triggered a memory. A long forgotten, Manticore-buried memory.

Rachel.

He'd forgotten about her entirely. How could he have forgotten about Rachel? For the first time he was happy to admit he'd helped Max torch Manticore. They'd used him to kill her. He remembered everything. He remembered how he'd felt. How he'd tried so hard to escape Manticore. How he'd tried so hard not to do what they wanted him to do and how he'd failed. Failed and become a shell of his former self.

What were the chances that his first extended solo mission had taken place in Seattle? What were the chances that he'd be a messenger delivering a package to this address? Alec did not like the situation one bit.

Alec wanted to be gone. He wanted to be gone, right now. He threw the package over the fence and rode away against Max's protests. She wouldn't understand. He'd saved her from having to understand, and she'd never know.

x x x

Alec did not want to be at Joshua's dinner party. Unfortunately, he was half the reason why Joshua was having a dinner party in the first place. They'd finished up the renovation over the weekend, and although it didn't look too impressive since it lacked furnishings, it was clean and Joshua's paintings lined the walls. Even with his limited understanding of art, Alec knew that what Joshua had put on the walls had been an expression of all the love and affection he felt for Max and the coming baby, as well as for his father and his brother. It was a cosy place, if Alec did say so himself. Nothing like the Manticore basement and somehow Joshua had managed to use the little natural light that came from the ground level windows to make the whole place seem brighter. It was definitely the sort of place Alec wanted to raise his kid.

But thoughts of the future and Max and the baby did nothing to quell the thoughts of the past that had been stirred up by their package drop off. He loved Rachel. His feelings for Max were incomparable. Rachel had been the person who'd made him into the person he was today, whether he'd remembered her or not. She was the person who'd taught him what love was. The person who'd made him see. She deserved far more than he'd ever been able to give her.

Alec picked at his food. He could tell it was upsetting Joshua to see him so glum. This was supposed to be a happy occasion. One too-flippant comment from Max was enough to set him off. He wasn't good company. He didn't need to be here.
But Alec didn't go far. He only went down to the basement, forgetting that he'd left the piano down there. He'd tuned it himself while Joshua painted the rooms. He'd replaced some of the piano wires and sanded down the warped keys to stop them from sticking. It was as close to new as it would ever be. But now that he remembered why he felt such a connection to the instrument, Alec regretted it, even as he felt drawn toward it.

Alec sat on the stool and found middle C instinctively. Joshua had painted the seat a cheery blue and green. He gently played a scale as a warm-up. Before he knew it, he was moving from there to a classical piece his hands remembered, but his mind wanted to forget.

When he'd played it through, he reached into his pocket and pulled out Rachel's locket. He'd forgotten that he'd even had it. He'd partly told himself that he could fence it some other time, but he never had. It had been important to him. He would never get to see it hanging around her neck ever again.

x x x

With a hand on his shoulder, Joshua startled Alec into reflexively fighting back. But Max, Original Cindy and Logan were too distracted by the renovations made to the space that they hadn't noticed.

"Did you do all of this?" Max asked, actually sounding impressed for once.

"Joshua helped," said Alec.

Joshua bounded away to show Max and Original Cindy the two bedrooms, and the working bathroom. He happily ran the taps and flushed the toilet to show her that it worked.

"That's pretty impressive," Logan said to Alec.

"Transgenic strength," said Alec. "No big." He was still clutching Rachel's locket, lost in its reflections.

Max came out of the bathroom and stood before the two men. "Joshua says you did this for me," she said.

"You needed a new place," said Alec. "What better place than an old place? Where one of your friends already lives."

Alec wasn't sure what the expression on Max's face was, but it turned to irritation and anger soon enough. "So you thought you'd just make all the decisions for me? Didn't even ask my input?"

Alec had forgotten that it was highly likely that Max would take his gift the wrong way. He tried to tell himself it was just her pregnancy hormones, but from Logan and OC's expressions, this was just how Max had always been.

Alec was so not in the mood. "So don't move in," he said, tossing the necklace up and catching it before shoving it into his pocket. "What do I care?"

He left. Nobody tried to stop him.

x x x

After spending the entire day at home, brooding. Alec left his apartment that night to get a drink at Crash. That might have had something to do with the fact that he'd drunk himself out of liquor. Of course, being transgenic he didn't feel more than a little tipsy. The numbing, loose sensation he'd been hoping to find wasn't present.

Alec didn't look up when he felt Max sit down beside him.

"I'm sorry if I seemed ungrateful," she said to him. "About the basement."

He snorted an ill-humoured laugh. As though he was brooding about that of all things.

"Thank you for fixing it up," she said.

"I didn't do it for your thanks," he said. Why had he done it? Just for the baby? It was a pretty time consuming investment. But he hadn't found a decent place to live on a shoestring budget until he'd met Brain. And if there was something he wanted for Max and the baby, it was a place off the grid, where she didn't have to worry that someone might come after her for something as mundane and inconsequential as rent payments. If she treated her rent the way she treated her Jam Pony job, she'd probably be homeless again in a month. Alec suspected that OC was the one who remembered to pay off their current landlord.

"Doesn't mean I can't appreciate it," she said.

"You're welcome," he said without feeling. "Are we done here?"

Max didn't take that as her cue to leave. It took bringing up Manticore before she could get it into her head that he didn't want to talk to her. And that it had nothing to do with her at all. Why did she think she could help? She didn't understand. He deserved to be punished.

x x x

Even the flicker of a chance that Rachel could be alive sent Alec to the Berrisford house again. Max saved his life, but Alec hadn't wanted it to happen. If it could have brought peace to Rachel's father, he would have gladly died even without seeing Rachel one last time. He suspected that Berrisford was smart enough to know what Alec did: that killing someone could never bring you peace.

He could only hope that when he was a father, when he met his child for the first time... that he could be strong enough to take care of her the way Robert Berrisford had his daughter. That he'd be able to live up to her expectations the way he had never managed to live up to Rachel's.

x X X x

A/N: Feel free to rewrite this chapter in your own head so that it sounds better... since I was clearly too lazy to rewrite it myself.