6 months ago


Max pushed her hair behind her ear, staring into Alec's eyes as he dipped a strawberries into the whipped cream. Her lips twitched as she watched him bring one deep red, juicy berry to his lips, puckered around the tip of its seeded skin, and sucked the cream while he bit into it. Just as she considered dropping her voice to a whisper and suggesting they retire to the boat so he can take another kind of peak into his mouth, he turned his head.

"We've been at this for two weeks, and still, no more leads. We've gone into a couple sewers and a dozen empty buildings, and still, nothing. What are we missing?" Alec set the stem of the strawberry on the side plate and wiped his index finger around the rim of the whipped cream bowl.

Intercepting his finger on the way to his mouth, Max pulled his hand toward hers instead, taking his finger into her mouth, wrapping her lips around the second knuckle and slowly sliding his digit out of her mouth. If his pupils dilated that quickly, she wondered if other parts of him also expanded that fast. She circled her tongue around his fingertip and watched his eyes searching hers as his mouth formed inaudible words, before kissing the printed tip and releasing him.

He bored into her, hungry and with mouth watering, sitting there like a goddamn fish, struck speechless by the hum of her body, anxious to feel her skin under his taste buds. "Don't start something you can't finish, Maxie," he finally managed softly. Screw this mission, he thought, at least for the next few hours. He'd hardened immediately when she'd taken his finger into her warm, wet mouth, and sucked the cream right off of it, and now she was staring at him under hooded eyes, and they were stuck here at this bistro.

"Who says I have any intention of not finishing it?" Her brow arched in challenge and her eyes shot down to his delectable lips.

He felt a pulse strike right through his body while he considered all of the public sex acts that raced through his mind, relaying heated images straight to his groin, but movement fifty feet behind Max snapped him out of his thoughts. "As much as I can't wait for this, we have company," he said, rolling his eyes as if to suggest that of course the universe would tease him like this.

His acknowledgement broke her out of her seductive trance and she sat up straight. Her heart had been pounding for an entirely different reason just a few seconds ago, and reigning in her lust proved to be difficult.

"Look like adults, though," he said, his pupils dilating to utilize his zoom. "Maybe White's guys." Finally, he thought. They're finally sending the big guns after them. Hopefully.

Keeping her back to the men behind her, Max looked forlornly at the bowl of whipped cream and then back up to her dirty-blonde boyfriend. The loss of alone time was palpable for her.

"I know," he agreed. "You can make it up to me." He smiled, wagging his eyebrows. "Let's go."

They'd only run for two miles, the men hot on their trail, when they found themselves close to port in an old construction yard of a company that'd clearly been out of business for decades, judging by the old, rusted pipes and even older run down cars that'd been picked for their working parts long ago. He saw the door to the mechanical room and took a chance. He pulled Max in, slammed the door shut and backed her up against it, covered her mouth with his hand and her torso with his broad chest, and looked over her shoulder through the small window, waiting for their pursuers to either catch up to or bypass them.

Max's chest bumped into his with each heaving breath as she watched his eyes for any clue as to what was happening outside, completely trusting that his expressions would inform her right away if they needed to move. Her heart was pounding and she suddenly felt hyperaware of each place their bodies touched. Their chests, the tops of their thighs, his hand over her lips and arm across her collarbone. He had been breathing hard, too, and with his attention focused out the window, she felt the adrenaline sparking her skin to life.

As soon as Alec saw the men pass up the yard, he backed away from Max and, with the sudden realization that he'd been holding his hand against her mouth and forearm against her torso, gently removed both. But the look on her face betrayed pure need, her lips flushed, her skin hot, her eyes wide, her chest heaving.

She surged forward and attacked his lips, grasping his hair in chunks as he pressed forward until her back hit the hot metal of the door again. She opened her lips to his probing tongue, and before she knew it, he backed away, eyes blown out, erection straining against his cargos. "Do we have something?" she asked breathlessly.

He smiled and reached into his leg pocket, producing the item in question.


While Alec showered, Max spent a few minutes marking off the map for the construction yard they'd visited, marking the building itself with an 'X,' but considering its proximity to the water and the quickness with which Lydecker returned, she felt like they might be getting closer.

Lydecker took the stairs below deck, where he found Max with the marker. "They barely went anywhere after they lost you," he announced, getting closer to view the map.

"We didn't go very far," Max said, her face flushing with warmth, feeling like she had just divulged her and Alec's sexual act against the door of the company building. She cleared her throat. "Maybe two miles?"

"I see that." Lydecker's brows bounced up once before he turned away.

"Were they White's guys? Familiars? They didn't look like the guys from Seattle." She didn't like not knowing her enemy. It made her feel more vulnerable, less in control.

Noting the worried look on her face, Lydecker said, "Don't worry, Tutu." He had the ghost of a smile on his lips.

She set the marker down and folded her arms in front of her. How was that even possible for Lydecker to know that name? She'd only remembered him calling her that in the regression. Did he remember that, too? "How do you know that name?"

He pursed his lips in a straight line before considering telling her. As far as he knew, he was the only one who remembered it. "I remembered it in one of my reacquired memories."

She sat down at the small table. "How did I get that nickname?"

His small suggestion of a smile reappeared on his face, and his wrinkles softened a bit as he recalled what happened. "It was back at Manticore. A frightened little 452 came to me, scared and shaking. I think you were on the precipice of a seizure and you were scared you were going to be found out." He grinned, but it fell quickly as nostalgia gave way to the knowledge of what usually happened to defective soldiers, even the young ones.

Max listened, on the edge of her seat waiting for his tale to continue.

"Well, in you came, and just like everywhere else, when you enter a room, you stated your designation. But you stuttered, four five t-two." He looked into the distance somewhere, remember that innocent little girl who just needed to feel safe; the little girl whose safety Sandeman had entrusted to the young lieutenant. "So, you sat on my lap and I told you a story while you seized." He looked up at Max.

It was one of the first times he'd ever seen her look upon him without an ounce of contempt. He liked the feeling; he wondered how long she would hate him for what Manticore had him do after the protocol was administered. He felt helpless to it – he couldn't have stopped what they had him do after the protocol; he wouldn't have remembered any part of what happened before it. He felt accountable all the same.

"So, what was the story?"

He took a deep breath and raised his eyebrows, remembering. "The story was about a brave, young ballerina who constantly shook. She shook so much that she was afraid she'd never be able to dance in a company. And the producers at this company were so strict. They kicked anyone out who wasn't perfect. But, every day, she practiced her form, and every day, she became better and better, until one day, she was so good that no one ever suspected that she ever trembled. By the end of the story, your seizure was over, and you passed out in my arms."

Max sat back, eyes welling with tears. He knew? He knew all along that she had seizures? And he protected her. He protected her all the way until Sandeman enforced the protocol and made them forget. It was possible, she guessed, that he knew about them after the protocol's administration, as well, and just never said anything.

What do you say to the man who tormented you for more than ten years, but also saved you and protected you?

"Thank you," she said barely above a whisper.

Lydecker met her sincere eyes, and for the first time in a long time, felt her gratitude penetrate his exterior. He nodded, but could say nothing further, the lump in his throat paralyzing his vocal chords.

She sat there, and he stood, both in silence, feeling the weight of their former partnership take form, feeling the gravity of their past inform their current relationship. She knew now that she could trust him, and he knew that meant he needed to be trustworthy.

His phone buzzed, and he looked down to its face, recognizing the number on his caller ID. "Stadler," he said. He answered. "Tell me you have something." He paced toward the table and grabbed the marker, writing a set of coordinates on the map corner. "Okay, got it." He hung up.

"He finally come through with someone who can help with these runes?" Max asked, standing up.

"Yeah, he got me a meet, but it's out at sea."

"Want us to tag along?" Max offered, not quite yet ready to break the spell of their conversation.

"I'll be back in a bit." The former Colonel headed up the stairs onto the deck.


Alec and Max sat in front of the map and studied it, ready to create new routes they could take in the coming days, waiting for Lydecker to have his meeting and hopefully return with good news. Something. Anything. Alec took a sidelong glance at Max, who had already been watching him. When caught, she cast her eyes back at the map and smiled.

"'You turn your face, but does it bring your heart?'" he asked, quoting Browning's Andrea Del Sarto.

Max looked back up to him, fixing her warm stare into him. She smiled, hearing the cadence in his speech change to something not quite his. She shut her mouth, hoping he'd say more.

Alec's open mouth quirked up on one side as he continued, a little further in the poem. "'Should you let me sit / here by the window with your hand in mine / and look a half hour forth on Fiesole, / both of one mind, as married people use, / quietly, quietly the evening through, / I might get up tomorrow to my work / cheerful and fresh as ever.'"

She sat there, rapt, surprised at the sentiment he gave her with his recitation.

"'I am bold to say / I can do with my pencil what I know," he paused when Max fixed him with a stare suggesting his 'pencil' was a euphemism for something else entirely, something dirty. He continued, "What I see, what at bottom of my heart / I wish for, if I ever wish so deep / - Do easily, too – when I say, perfectly, / I do not boast, perhaps: yourself are judge.'" He almost blushed at the seductive look she gave him at the suggestion.

"'Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, / or what's a heaven for?'" This line spoke to him above some of the others. The poem described a painter, reaching for greatness, commenting that even the greatest of arts is nothing without a soul behind it, without something to color it, fill it with meaning. Alec had been a part of Manticore for so long, and meeting Max had opened up a part of him he hadn't known existed; it was a part of him that was hopeful, ambitious, that wanted to be better, not just for her, but because she made him believe it was already in him. Here he was, living in the beyond, living his heaven.

Overcome with emotion, Alec took a breath. His brows pulled together, and when Max saw it, her concern became evident. She reached a hand out to touch him, sweeping her fingertips along the back of his hand like she understood. And she did.

He swallowed thickly. "'You called me, and I came home to your heart.'"

At this Max actually stood up and took the two steps to settle herself in his lap, straddling him, and held his face in her palms. Her eyes glassed with unshed tears and she leaned forward to press her lips to one eyelid, then the other, and then she kissed the tip of his nose, moving down to his lips. She gave him a quick peck, then another, letting her lips linger longer on his. When he wrapped his arms around her back and held her to his chest, she deepened their kiss.

He infused every bit of his love into their slow, passionate kiss, felt the gentle balance between their dueling tongues and the soft purr of her body against his.

She broke off their kiss and found his urgent gaze. "We keep each other reaching," she murmured. "And when you call me, I come home to your heart."

His hazel stare bored into her. How could he explain the feeling in his heart? How could he express how resolutely and thoroughly she built him up and gave him opportunity to prove that worth? That he was here because she made him worthy? He wasn't sure there were words for this depth.

Alec raised his palm to her cheek, sweeping his fingertips to the back of her neck, absentmindedly touching her barcode, and his thumb over her cheek, over the soft lobe of her ear, and touched his open mouth to hers. He held her lips to his by that hand, rubbing her jaw and massaging her neck with his fingers, strumming her forward so he could try – try to show her how much he loved her, try to show her how he needed her.

Her tongue ghosted forward, and his met it, uniting them in a primal need for connection. He grunted softly, picked her up by both of her thighs, and carried her to the bedroom. He set her down between himself and the bed. Silently, and simultaneously, the lovers removed their clothing, staring into one another, needing each other to consume, searching for that feeling of completion.

Max backed up onto the bed and reached out to accept his body between her legs. He kissed her softly, sweetly, until she whimpered at the simple beauty of his confession, and pulled his neck, his back, his hips into her, filling her thickly with smooth hardness.

Burying his face in her neck, Alec breathed a sigh as Max's lips formed a silent 'oh,' and he dedicated every fiber of his being to her.

Home.