ARCHIVE: No
By Valjean
All Things End
"He's dying," Max said tightly as she tried to keep pressure on Alec's wounds. The one in his side was barely bleeding although there was a bullet buried somewhere beneath his ribcage. The shoulder shot, a through-and-through, was seeping badly but could wait. However, the chest wound was what had her terrified. Eyes closed, unconscious, Alec struggled for every breath as air bubbles frothed from the ugly bloody hole. As for an exit point, there wasn't any -- and from the location Max knew the bullet had to be lodged horribly close to her mate's eratically beating heart.
Joshua had carried Alec down the hall to his own room and lain him gently on his bed. Now, the sheets and blankets beneath him were soaked with crimson.
"A doctor?" Max said, turning desperate eyes on the dogman. "There has to be a doctor on Calvi, in the town?"
"I think so," Joshua said. "But who will get him?"
Max realized her friend was right. Joshua, with his doglike appearance, couldn't very well go rushing madly about the little town in the wee hours of the morning pounding on doors. Which meant she'd have to go ... leave Alec ... with no assurances that he'd still be here when she returned.
"Joshua?" she said, her voice cracking, her throat filling with tears. "I don't know what to do." She looked down at Alec, at his frighteningly pale face, at his stillness except for the harsh rise and fall of his chest. "I don't know what he'd do ..."
A shadow fell across them from the doorway and Max looked up, her dark hair falling in her eyes.
"I heard gunshots," Otto Gottlieb said, his voice trembling. "Sandeman's ..."
"Dead," Joshua said. "He tried to kill Alec and Max."
Sandeman's assistant's eyes widened. "I knew he was worried about something," he said more to himself than to them. "I knew he was afraid of 494. I tried to convince him that Alec would never intentionally do harm, but the old man was obsessed with his Prophecies." He was looking at Alec. "How bad is he?"
"He's dying," Max said coldly, refusing to shed more tears in front of this man -- once enemy, now ally.
"I'll get my medical supplies," Otto said. "Maybe I can--"
"No one's getting anything," a new voice spoke.
Max felt as if her world was reeling. "Logan! What ... What are you doing here?"
But the gun in his hand made Logan Cale's purpose obvious. "What I'm doing is making sure that trangenic bastard is dead," he said, aiming the semi-automatic at the unconscious young man. "I'm not going to live the rest of my life looking over my shoulder, wondering when he's going to pounce on me from out of the darkness. After what I did ..." Cold eyes focused for a moment on Max. "After what I did to you ... he could never just let it go, leave me alone." Logan was standing ... still walking ... but leaning on a cane, the transfusion wearing off more rapidly now. Soon he'd be paralyzed again, back in his wheelchair ...
Joshua was looking from Max to Logan in confusion, not understanding at all.
"Logan raped me," Max said, the three words explaining everything.
The low growl issuing from Joshua's throat warned Cale that Alec wasn't the only one he now had to worry about. And then, of course, there was Max ...
Otto began to edge along the wall toward him. Logan never even gave a warning, merely pointed the gun and shot him in the head.
"Don't!" Max screamed too late as Sandeman's assistant slumped to the floor, as dead as his master in the other room.
Joshua rose to his full height and put himself between Logan and his two friends. "Are you going to shoot me too?" he asked quietly.
"Don't want to, Big Fella," Logan said, his voice not unkind. "But I will if I have to. You see, it's come down to me or them."
"You hurt Max," Joshua said. "You hurt Alec."
"Yes," Logan admitted. "I hurt them both very much." He turned his eyes to Max who was still holding a wad of cloth against the gaping wound in Alec's chest, vainly trying to stem the bleeding as his life slowly slipped away.
"Max," he said. "I'm truly sorry. I know that's meaningless, especially since I'm going to kill him," he gestured to Alec, "but I never meant for it to be like this between us. I'm giving you one last chance here. Come with me. Forget Alec. Forget he ever existed. Brac will be our son. I'll treat you much better than--"
Logan's words faltered as his eyes filled with astonishment. A gun in Max's hand was the last thing he ever expected to see. Max hated guns. Never in all the years he'd known her had she ever even touched on, let alone used one. And now she had one pointed directly at him.
"Alec took it from one of the guards on the way in," Max said softly. "Tucked it in his belt." She smiled slightly. "You know Alec ... he loves guns ... loves to have one. He never understood why I hated them so much, but then I never really told him about Eva, how Lydecker shot her right in front of me when I was a child." She glanced at the badly wounded man. "I'm going to have to tell him that story someday ..."
Logan looked from Joshua to Max, wavering.
"You don't want to kill us all," Max said quietly. "You're not evil, Logan. You're not a bad man. You just let your love for me get all twisted up with hate. We could have been such good friends if only you could have let me go."
"We can still be friends," Logan said, his voice tinged with panic. "Max, you're right. I don't want to hurt you or Joshua. Don't make me--"
He never got to finish. The first bullet caught him in the groin, doubling him over in agony.
"Max!" he screamed, trying to raise the gun that had almost dropped from his fingers.
Joshua snarled, and with a move almost as quick as an X5 wrenched the semi-automatic away. Then he raised a huge hand, intending to strike a fatal blow.
"Wait!" Max commanded, her voice now hard and harsh. "Let him suffer."
Logan had collapsed on the floor, curled in a ball, his hands clutching his ruined genitals. Glasses askew, his eyes filled with tears, he gasped, "Max, please ... Don't ..."
"That was for what you did to me," Max said, her voice almost gentle. Casually she aimed and pulled the trigger again, this time sending a bullet into his knee. "And that's for letting Alec nearly die from the Familiar's virus. I'm so glad you still have feeling in your legs." Another shot to his other knee. Another horrible scream. "And that's for turning Alec over to White." She had to raise her voice now to be heard above Cale's shrieks of agony. The barrel of the gun rose one last time. "And this," she said, her voice a hiss, "is so Alec doesn't have to suffer the guilt of killing you himself."
The final bullet shattered the lens of Logan's glasses, as well as his eye, penetrating deep into his brain -- ending forever the horrific love triangle that had led to so much tragedy.
To be continued ...
Anyone who wants to read "The Best Laid Plans 2: Death and Life" in its entirety is invited to my website: http://www.michaeleaston.com/DA/DAfanfic.html. I also have a number of other DARK ANGEL M/A fanfiction stories there that I've not made available on ff.net as of yet. I even keep an email list of interested readers whom I notify when I post new work on the site.
Also, I'd like to encourage all M/A DARK ANGEL fans to read Max Collins' official prequel novel BEFORE THE DAWN. True, Alec isn't in the story (yet), but there's lots of canon background material in the book that would be pertinent to Alec later on. Plus, Mr. Collins says that Alec and Joshua will be "centerstage" in the DARK ANGEL sequel novel SKIN GAME coming out next February. -- author's note