"She Said Nothing" Disclaimer: I wish I owned Alec. *sigh* If I did, he`d never leave the house...he`d be too busy helping me "make up the bed." :D

A/N: A short, short snippet of a fic about Alec, whom I love. Aww. It doesn`t really have much of a plot. I don`t know, I might turn it into a fic an expand on the situations mentioned in here if I get positive feedback for it.

It`s set a year after 'Designate This'.
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A lone man sat on the rickety park bench, a picturesque view of post-Pulse Seattle. To the average passer-by he looked tired, worn down, but no more so than any other man that wandered the streets.

I saw him for what he really was.

Silently, I slipped onto the bench beside him. His breath came out in tiny puffs of mist but it didn`t seem to bother him any, curled into the leather jacket that halfway camouflaged the stark black barcode on the nape of his neck.

"Hello," I whispered quietly, watching as my own breath exhaled in a cloud. Almost as an afterthought, I added: "494."

With a start, he looked up, caught off guard. I had disturbed his thoughts - he never did like that. Out of habit, 494`s hand snaked up and rubbed over his neck. "Who are you?"

I shrugged lightly and sat back against the bench, tearing my gaze from his hazel-green eyes to look across the desolate, frostbitten landscape. "I`m everybody."

His mind was turning; I could tell. Trying to place with me a time, a designation. Even though he was engineered to recall, I didn`t think it would help him in that instant. I had underestimated him.

"X6-314, damn!" He scooted closer, peering at wind-chapped face. "Yeah, 314. Shit." The corner of my mouth quirked up as I turned to him, taking in his surprised expression.

"The one and the only."

"The guards said you were dead," 494 mumbled, reaching out to grasp my chin. Taking a rare liberty, he rotated my face in disbelief. "God, it`s like - what`s that guy? - Lazarus." Shaking his head, he released my chin. I sighed and unconsciously rubbed the still-tender skin beneath my left breast.

"What can I say, 494? You can`t get rid of me that easily."

"Alec," he said, after a brief paused. I raised an eyebrow, flicked a strand of brown hair out of my eyes.

"Alec?"

"Smart aleck."

I laughed softly, drinking in his face. He still was as beautiful as I remembered but now shaped by life outside of the protected walls of Manticore. Shaped into a man. "It fits you. Alec. I like it." I couldn`t help but wonder who gave it to him. "Lock. I`m Lock."

Now it was his turn to raise an eyebrow, his arrogant and blond, and ask, "Lock? You found your life`s calling as a locksmith? I`m disappointed - "

I flashed my teeth for a moment, shook my head. "No, nothing that mundane. Hemlock - my poisons. Are you losing your touch already, Alec? Too much time in the 'real world' making you soft?"

A quiet sigh escaped from him. "Don`t kid about that, three. I don`t know, I don`t know..." He rolled his shoulders, a smooth ripple of muscle beneath his jacket. No, he certainly hadn`t gone soft in the year since Manticore had self-destructed. If anything, he looked more alive.

Quietly, my voice floated between us. "Do you feel alive?"

Unhesitatingly, he answered, "Yes."

"Then you know, Alec." I touched my fingers briefly to the back of his knuckles. "You know."

A rueful laugh met my ears. "You did always know what to say."

"It ain`t no Common Verbal Usage," I quipped, glad to hear some of the tension drain out of his voice on a chuckle. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched him as he looked over the bleak scenery. He had come a long way from the young man who began training me in the ways of warfare on a whim from Lydecker. One-on-one training: male to female, experience to youth. I think that he had intended for us to be the first cross X-series breeding partners; to see how my canine would react to his feline.

I still wonder how that would have been between us.

Before I had a chance to discover, he had been moved to Psyobs because of the rogue X5 who had been his twin. I still hate 493 for taking that chance away from me. Away from us.

Instead of completing my training with Alec, I had been moved to normal group training and was eventually partnered with another X5. By the time my former teacher was released and pronounced sane from Psyobs, I was already out on my first off-base missions.

And getting shot by terrorist spies.

"Lock?" Alec`s voice broke into my thoughts, dragging me back to reality. I blinked, shook my head, and straightened my shoulders.

"Sorry, just wandered off there for a moment." I cast him a reassuring smile, one that covered up what I had been feeling inside. It seemed almost fitting considering I occasionally made my living from acting on a small, dark stage.

He smiled in return, the same quirky lifting of lips that had grown on me so many years ago. With a sigh, I hoisted myself up and turned toward him. "You wanna take a walk for a while?"

With a shrug, Alec stood and shoved his cold-chaffed hands into his pockets.

"Sure, you lead the way."
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A/N: All thoughts and opinions welcome. (: Please review and such...after all, an author can only improve if she knows what she`s doing wrong...