"Max, this is Garfield," Alec introduced. "Garfield, Max."
Their Friendly in town was a little squirrelly man with a military buzzcut of what otherwise would be a full head of curly black hair, big tortoise shell glasses in front of doe brown eyes, and a chocolate-colored suit that looked uncomfortably woolen. She shook his hand and he peered at her, his thick glasses making his eyes look bigger. "Hey, nice to meet you."
"You, too." Garfield looked down at his computer and started typing again. He nodded his head toward something to his left, and Max found their IDs fresh off the laminator while Alec stepped to the back room of the shop to call base.
"Garfield, huh? Are you all named after presidents, or is that just coincidence?" She thought about her Seattle Friendly, Reagan Ronald, a.k.a. 'Normal,' who was named after a president, too. Wonder how he's doing.
"What do you mean?" Garfield asked, his concentration on the screen unbroken.
Max fingered the IDs and perused the little shop. "Used to know another guy, named Reagan."
"Huh." Garfield seemed to be the owner and sole operator of the little hardware-type repair shop which boasted making keys, fixing clocks and other electronics, and occasionally accepting consignments. She passed a glass counter under which she saw a few pieces of jewelry, some old school technology, a few uncommon weapons. It all explained the name of the shop perfectly: This 'N That.
It had been a bit of a challenge, Max and Alec calming down from their morning... foreplay? After some awkward exchanges of who would use the bathroom first (Max, since Alec clearly had a situation in his boxer briefs) and getting redressed in their dirty clothes from the previous day, the duo made their way downstairs with their backpack and her purse, ready to start the day and prepare for the auction later that evening.
Libby had prepared some country fried steak and potatoes for breakfast, as well as some coffee and orange juice, but neither of them could eat much more than a couple of bites. They weren't that big on a mostly fried meal, but more than that, they needed to meet up with their Friendly.
On the way to the shop, the hybrid-humans stole glances at one another and spoke in vagueness in case the Walkers were super paranoid about everything and extended their surveillance into the car. Max needed to ask about the weapons they were about to purchase at auction, what their plan was, and what to do about it when they outbid the Walkers.
"Eddie, isn't it just crazy what Libby said about those weapons looking just like you and me?"
Watching the road vanish to a point in the rear view mirror, Alec nodded. Yeah, just like you and me, he thought. He grabbed her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. "Hard to believe how far technology has come, isn't it? Seems like just yesterday we were shooting the shit with Roger about that gun he's been working on. And here we are, about to become the brand new owners of our own little insurance policy."
She fixed him with a unsure look. "I can hardly wait to see it," she said truthfully, though she was more interested in keeping it off the black market, and probably bringing it to a Manticore-run facility to see if there was anything to learn from the tech or biology.
"I bet one of my clients would be very interested."
"What do you think he would say?" asked Max. She imagined they were talking about Lydecker.
"I think the old man would pay top dollar, more than anyone at the auction would be willing to part with, for just one. Maybe I should call him and find out."
"Great idea," she agreed.
Which brought them to now. Continuing toward the back of the shop, Max overheard Alec ask, "Okay, when do we leave?" He faced the rear exit and nodded at what the director said, despite the fact that they were on a voice call. "She's definitely ready."
Ready for what? What are these plans they always seem to have for me?
"She's a quick study, she's got it down already." He grabbed the nearby duffle bag and turned to find her staring. "Yes, sir, I would. Without hesitation."
Max watched him unapologetically as he worked his jaw, seemingly impatient with whatever it was the director said.
"Yes, sir," he replied, but the tone he used reminded her of the tone she used every single time Zack pulled rank. Is that what was happening now? Was the Director pulling rank? What the hell about?
Max furrowed her brow while her handler pressed his lips together.
Finally, he took a breath, said "agreed," and then hung up.
"Everything okay?"
Alec hefted the bag from one hand to the other. "We're meeting up with another Manticore team in four hours at the airport, and they're taking over for us."
"What? Why?" Max was confused. Had he said something during his call that the director didn't like? About her? Did they think that because it wasn't a Romeo mission, she couldn't do it?
"We have a moving piece in Osaka; we have to let someone else take the auction."
This was the second time she had to let someone else take over her assigned op. Max was not accustomed to leaving an assignment incomplete, but the other common denominator in this scenario was Alec. Maybe he really was an accelerator. Wait, the Christina Op, she recalled. "What do I need to do?"
"We'll brief in the air. We have a twenty hour flight ahead of us, so let's just grab some new threads, return the Walkers' car, and get to the airport." Alec passed Max and peeked back into the shop. "Yo, Odie, you got some wheels we can borrow?"
"His first name's Odie?" Max whispered. "Were people forty years ago constantly high?"
Taking separate cars back to the Walker Ranch gave the faux-couple a chance to reflect on their time together over the past few days.
The cruise liner-turned-laboratory on the seas was definitely a new twist to an old idea for Max, and subverting all expectation had been kind of fun. She was able to do her Bond espionage thing, and he was the Romeo. Sort of, she mused, remembering his police uniform and all of the allusions to Britney songs while she tried her hand at police puns.
Their night at the Walker ranch had been so illuminating both professionally and personally. They found out the Walkers were the coca growers in league with a Mexican cartel, that their business may be in danger from another local grower, and of course some of the biggest news of the night: that the bio-weapons Eilers had planned on selling were actually human-hybrid soldiers - likely from a rival genetics operation run abroad somewhere. They'd stayed behind for the opportunity to acquire proof of the Walker's business, and ended up having one of the most honest personal conversations. He hadn't explained anything about Rachel yet, but at least he spoke openly about his attraction.
Max fingered the stringy ties on one shoulder of her red and white floral sundress. When Alec saw her in it, his mouth fell open a scant inch and he swallowed while he traced the lines of her legs down into the white lace up heels strapped to mid-shins. Untie me, she wanted to say. Untie me with your mouth.
Not to mention how delicious he looked in his light blue linen pants and blazer, under which he wore a navy shirt. The whole thing made his eyes look like a dark forest, and getting lost in that forest was her whole objective in life.
Sure, they'd only be in these clothes another couple hours, but they cleaned up nicely.
Leading the way back to the Walkers' in their borrowed car, Alec checked the rear view mirror every few minutes to confirm she was still in it, not because he thought she'd get lost, but because it was kind of nice to have a partner on his ops again, and especially nice for that partner to be Max. She was a great improviser, an amazing Romeo, and one of the smartest women he'd met. Her file was full of little facts that had surprised and delighted him.
Their morning was so goddamn erotic, and barely anything at all had happened; it was a quiet symphony of sensual rubbing and gentle kissing. Alec felt the heat rise in the car. How would he survive the next op without caving in to his desires?
When they dropped off the Walkers' car, Alec pulled Max to his side and gave her a sexy smile. "We're gonna have to miss this one," he informed Harry. "We got called to another auction in the East; and it's one we just can't miss."
The Texan couple actually looked sad to hear the news. "What about the weapons? Thought you needed a little protection?" Harry flicked his hat up a bit to scratch his forehead, not doing a very good job of hiding his wonder over why they'd leave only hours before the auction they'd been so eager to attend.
Max smiled. "We'll pick something up elsewhere - I have a line on a gun that I just can't pass up." She broke away from Alec to hug Libby while Alec and Harry shook hands. "Thank you for letting us stay with you and borrow your car today."
"Anytime," Libby said.
"Don't be a stranger," Harry added.
At the airfield, Alec and Max sat in Garfield's old gray car, waiting for the private jet to arrive. Alec thought about starting in on the briefing for the Christina mission, but his agent seemed to be preoccupied with something else. "Something on your mind?" he ventured.
"Yeah... I wanted to ask you something personal. Is that okay?"
His mind raced with possibilities of what she might ask, ranging from deep cover solos and target eliminations to how he takes his coffee and whether he'd be willing to risk his career for her. "Yes."
Her fingers fidgeted in her lap. "Was that your first panic attack, back at the harbor?"
He took a shallow breath. "Yeah. Sorry, I didn't know that would happen. Thanks for keeping it out of your report."
"Please don't apologize, it's not your fault. It just seemed like you didn't have any practice with any calming or coping mechanisms, so I thought maybe it was your first one."
He nodded solemnly. She would not have outed him to the director or any other personnel for his emotional responses. He understood that now, and was starting to trust her even more.
Turning more toward him, Max's countenance softened. "Was it... because of Rachel?"
The onslaught of memories rushed into his mind and he thought about the last time he'd seen her green eyes before she was just... gone.
He thought he'd buried all things Rachel long ago, but the parallels between Rachel and Max - and his relationship to either - were many, and of course it would allow some emotions to surface. He didn't really know how she put it together. Besides the fact that he'd called her Rachel last night, somehow she had known that his panic attack was related to Rachel. "Um, yeah. I didn't know what was happening. I just, I saw you, and I guess it just triggered something. And I don't know why I kissed you like that. I'm not sure I've ever kissed anyone like that. I had to... I know it was unprofessional."
Shaking her head, Max said, "what happened out there is not a reflection of your professionalism; it's a reflection of who you are. And you're human, well, part human anyway, and it's okay to feel things. Sometimes it's so deep, and the only way through it is through it."
She had a good point, he reasoned. Denying the pain or trauma doesn't make it go away for very long. Eventually, one must deal.
"And it was a great kiss," she continued. "And even if we hadn't kissed, I would have been there. Do you want to talk about her?"
Alec let the quiet permeate the car while he considered his words. He wanted more time to explain. To do justice to the agent in question. To do justice to the woman in question.
"You don't have to tell me," she started again, "but I really want to listen. I want to understand."
And of course he owed Max that much. They were, more or less, partners, and his life would sometimes depend on her, just as much as hers would depend on him. He could not ask for her trust without giving his own. No matter how deep he thought it was all buried, compartmentalizing it all had led him to a panic attack, and he didn't want that to happen again, or for something worse to happen. He couldn't bear it if while he was having a breakdown, his inaction cost someone else's life.
He imagined Rachel. Her long dark hair and clean fair skin, her bright and sometimes arrogant smile, the way her laugh floated on the air like an errant spider web, maybe even with a spider on it, ready to wrap someone up if she caught them.
"Uh," he started again ineloquently, "Rachel was an agent, and I was her handler." Outside the car and inside the airport, Alec could see people walking about, rushing through the gates, ready to board their planes to wherever it is they lived their lives. Each life was the sum of experiences of the person living it, and that was something that was cut short for Rachel.
Max kept quiet, waiting for him to continue, waiting for him to tell her about this woman, this agent she herself had never met. Rachel was a part of Alec she'd never truly know, and she did not want to put words in his mouth.
"Rachel was a Romeo with strong political savvy. She was cocky and... impulsive," he searched the distance for the right words to appraise her. "Her success rate was high, she was decorated and driven. Too ambitious, considering her impulsivity. But she could also be hilarious."
His somewhat guarded demeanor had her whole attention. He spoke of her like they shared a deep connection, maybe even love. A pang of jealously ran through her.
He chuckled, remembering. "She once recreated the scene from True Lies, you know, the movie about the spy where the wife dresses up like a prostitute one night and tries to dance super sexy for the guy who ends up being her husband?"
Max smiled. "Yeah, I remember."
"It was like a joke among a few of us. Who could pull it off, I guess. Not that movie specifically, just... any one we'd all seen." The light in his eyes dulled as he got to the problematic part of the story, and he scratched his eyebrow. "But then two years ago, we were both undercover in Maputo and she was in a tight spot with this one drug dealer. I advised her to wait for him before retrieving the shipment, but she was so stubborn, so goddamn stubborn, and she made a mistake. It cost her her life."
His eyes met Max's again, and Max could see the ache in him, the tenseness keeping him from letting the raw emotion out. She wanted to reach out to him.
She realized then why he'd slipped up out in the trees and called her by Rachel's name. She had been impulsive, a little too ambitious, maybe, in thinking she would scale the greenhouse inconspicuously and have no issues getting caught obtaining more evidence. For him, it must have been so close to something Rachel would have done, her handler's orders be damned.
But Rachel didn't die from multiple gunshot wounds like Max could have, out in the acreage of the Walker Ranch. No, she had to have died in the water, because it was Max's discolored skin and seemingly lacerated head he kept watching before and after he pulled her out of the water at the harbor, and then administered real CPR.
Carefully, Max asked, "So she drowned?" That would make the most sense given how his panic attack came on. "And you tried to save her?"
Alec saw the blue-hued skin of Max's face in a burst of memory, her head wound, the skin at her wrists. He remembered carrying her limp body ashore and pleading with unknown dieties for her to open her eyes and come back to him. He choked back some primal emotion fighting its way up into his throat. "No," he answered. "She was already dead before we found her."
Her own eyes welling from deep empathy and from the memory of hauling Alec's lifeless body onto the buoy to administer CPR on him, Max swiped under them. She got Alec back, but he didn't get Rachel back. "I'm so sorry, Alec." She reached out to his hand then, and he met her watery concern.
He tilted his face to the roof of the car, where the upholstery was ripped near the center. It dawned on him that he'd nearly done the same to Max when The Genevieve exploded. "Max, I didn't realize until now... I didn't mean to do that, I just saw the flash drive and took the opportunity. I'm so sorry I put you in that position to have to... revive me. That must have been terrifying."
Tears streamed over her cheeks and he pulled her to his chest - as much as he could in this relic of a car - and spoke softly in her ear, "Thank you, thank you for saving my life."
A knock on the driver's side window broke them apart, and Alec and Max both looked over his shoulder to see the smiling faces of Pete and Tinga, another soldier from Max's unit. "Huddle up," he began. "We need to go over the specs while the jet refuels."