Endure No More
Part 12
Disclaimer: If it has anything to do with Dark Angel or its production company, then it's not mine. I wish I did own something, but I don't.
Authors Notes: Check out Agora for more DA and other fanfiction as well as original writing by some very talented writers.agora.suddenlaunch2.com
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"Hey Max," said Alec quietly as he came to stand in front of her.
"Hey yourself," she replied exhaustedly and a little hesitantly. She couldn't help wondering why he was here now. Right now as her heat finished, not before and not after, but NOW.
"Come here," he said softly, opening his arms, love shining in his eyes.
She ran to him. She couldn't help it. She really wanted to be angry at him for leaving her when she needed him the most, but she couldn't. She had finally figured out that he needed his space to believe that she did truly love him. The light in his eyes told her he now believed her and was ready to give her his heart again. But better still, he was willing to accept her love and her heart. The agony of having to go through her heat alone was well worth it if this was her reward.
"Oh Alec," she sobbed in his embrace. "I thought . . . I thought that you . . ."
"Shhhh. I know. I know. It's ok," he said trying to quieten her down. He never expected this reaction that's for sure. Yelling and screaming maybe, but not tears.
"I know I should have been here for you, but . . ." he started.
"No Alec, you were right. I'm glad you left," she said forcefully, looking him straight in the eyes to make sure that he would understand what she wanted to say. She wiped her tears away with the back of her hand before continuing.
"I realised that just saying the words doesn't mean anything. Actions speak louder than words, and well, my actions hadn't exactly shown you how much I loved you."
She gently led him to the sofa. After seeing the look of love in his eyes she knew that there would be a relationship between them, but first they had to talk, really talk and communicate. They had a lot of things to discuss before they could move on.
"In my mind I thought coming up here would prove to you how much I love you," she said as they sat down. She took both his hands in hers. She needed the physical contact with him to give her the strength to say what she wanted, needed to say.
"Once I got here I realised that perhaps I should have thought more about what you wanted, especially after some of the things Bic was saying. She knows you better than I do, and she's only known you for a few weeks."
Alec tried to interrupt her, but she wouldn't let him. She had to tell him, even though it was really hard to find the words to explain. She took a deep breath, looked down at their entwined hands and continued.
"When I was in heat, I finally saw that everything was about me. I loved you. I wanted you. I needed you. I. I. I. I never stopped to think about you, about what you wanted, about what you needed," she said as she risked looking into his eyes again. The understanding and love she saw almost overwhelmed her. That, and the fact that he was gently caressing her hands as she spoke, enabled her to carry on.
"As soon as I started thinking about you and trying to put myself in your place everything made sense. It suddenly became clear why you left me in Seattle, and why you left me in heat. Of course," she said jokingly with a grin on her face as she tried to lightened the mood a little, "you will be paying for that little episode for a long time to come."
"No, no comments from you," Max said, stopping him just as he opened his mouth to say a smart remark. "It's my time to talk. I have to get this off my chest and if I don't do it now I'm not sure I'll have the courage to try again." Max took a few seconds to regain her train of thought.
"OK where was I? That's right. Heat," she sighed with a mock glare at him before turning serious again.
"During all that time alone," she started, with a quick, pointed glare in Alec's direction, "it finally sunk in that you didn't think I loved you - the real you, not the façade you. I know you told me the same thing, but I still thought it was my problem. Finally I figured out that it was your problem and not mine." She could feel his agitation and tried to calm him by caressing his hands as he had done to her earlier.
"I couldn't solve this one Alec," she said softly. "It wasn't my problem. It was something you had to sort out on your own, and I wasn't helping by being here." She raised her hands to stop him from talking yet again. "My turn I said, yours will come," she said gently but with determination in her voice.
"Because you doubted me, how would you know that heat wasn't a factor in my being here? You concluded, wrongly I might add, that my heat was driving force behind my decision to come up here." She looked deep into his eyes to make sure he knew that she did understand his dilemma.
"Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't," she said with a small shrug of her shoulders. "It's neither here nor there now. I know it wasn't, but you didn't. And that was all that mattered. What you thought."
"I worked out that if anything had happened between us you always would have had a small doubt in the back of your mind that it wasn't really me making love to you, but my heat. As soon as I realised this was what you were thinking I decided that you were right," she said with a depreciating smile as Alec tried to hide his shock at her saying he was right.
"It was best that you weren't around. I want us to have a relationship based on love and trust. We would have had to work harder to have this if we had made love then." She was silently laughing at the expressions on his face. Shock, hope and desire were all warring to be the dominant expression.
"I guess what I am trying to say, is that my way of trying to prove to you that I love you was to try and get through heat alone, by myself. And I did it," she said with a smile and a hint of triumph in her voice.
"It was hard, don't get me wrong. That was probably the hardest thing I have ever done in my life, and I never want to go through it again, you got that," she said frowning and giving him a teasing kick with her leg that was closest to him.
"But it made me stronger. I proved to myself and hopefully to you that I would and will do anything for you." She raised her eyebrows as he tried to speak, indicating that she hadn't finished yet.
"I know it wasn't all about proving myself to you, but in a way it was," she continued thoughtfully. She was speaking almost to herself now and not Alec.
"I had to make you see that I love you, and that I don't want anyone else - only you. But also that I could put your needs above my own. That's something I have never been good at," she said with a sigh. She hated admitting to her weaknesses, but this was Alec. If she couldn't admit them to him, then who could she admit them to?
She paused briefly, trying to pluck up the courage for what she wanted to say next. She looked him straight in the eyes, attempting to convey all her love not only with her words and voice, but also through her eyes. "When we make love, I want you to know that it's me making love to you."
"Max, can I speak now?" he asked softly. He hated that he had put her through all of this. Now it was his turn to open up his heart to her.
"Yeah, I've rambled enough," she replied slightly embarrassed. She hadn't meant to keep repeating herself, it had just happened. And to think, she had had it all planned out what she was going to say and how she was going to explain it. Oh well he was still here, that was a plus.
"Look at me Max," he commanded softly, gently tilting her chin so he could see her face.
"I was really hurt and disappointed when you turned up here. It was like you hadn't listened to a word I said when we were talking on the phone. And then I realised you were heat." He knew what he had said, and what he was going to say would hurt Max. But he certain she would be more hurt by him not saying it, because she knew it was the truth.
He took a deep breath before he continued. "I was absolutely gutted. The small ray of hope that glimmered in my heart when I saw you was quickly extinguished by the smell of your pheromones. I was thinking exactly what you thought I was."
"You were right. I needed this time to get things sorted in my head. Having you here in heat made it a lot harder," he really hated hurting her. He tried to soften his words by tracing delicate circles with his thumbs on her palms. "But at the same time it also made it easier."
At her questioning look he continued. "I had to work things out. I couldn't just push them into the back of my mind and hope they would just disappear. You forced me to come to some conclusions.
This was it. The moment he was both anticipating, yet dreading. He took a deep calming breath.
"I love you Max, and nothing can change that. I thought running away might have been the answer but it wasn't. As much as I love my life here, something was missing - you."
She sat there with a silly grin on her face at his declaration of love. She thought it was so sweet. So much better than her disjointed rambling.
"Hearing you talk to yourself and convince yourself that you could handle heat without using me, made me see that you do truly love me." He stopped there as the silly grin on her face was quickly changing into a look designed to kill - him.
"You bastard. You were at the door the whole time? And you let me suffer." She jumped to her feet, yanking her hands out of his and assumed a fighting stance. To say Max was angry would be a slight understatement. She was fuming.
She saw Alec's expression change from love, to a little bit of panic and terror, at her reaction to his eavesdropping. She knew he thought he was in trouble - major trouble. Ha. Mission accomplished. He didn't think he could get away with telling her that and expect no reaction, did he?
"Just as well I love you or you would be in so much trouble right now," she replied with a cheeky grin, flopping back down onto the sofa and almost landing in his lap.
"You mean, you aren't going to hit me, or kick my ass?" he asked, very confused at her reaction. Where was the Max of old? Although he had to admit that this cheeky Max was a hell of a lot more fun than bitchy Max.
"Nah. I have much better plans for you and your ass," she smirked.
"But not now," she said quickly as she saw he was about to make his move.
"Show me around our new home. Bic was going to show me around, but then you showed up with Quinn and his broken leg, and the rest is history." She straightened up in the sofa to see his reaction, eyes twinkling with amusement.
"Hang on. Back up a bit," responded Alec, nibbling on his thumb with a thoughtful, yet puzzled look on his face. "You mentioned something about our new home?"
"Yeah I did." She loved it when she confused and threw him. "Why go back to Seattle when everything I want is right here - you."
As Alec started to smile - that special smile for when he was truly happy - she knew she had made the right decision. Alec already had a system in place to transport those who wanted to move here from TC. If anyone wanted to stay in TC they could. It would be up to them to choose a new leader, if they even wanted a leader. Max didn't see a need for her to remain in TC. It had survived while she had been moping over Alec, and if she was perfectly honest with herself, she knew she had never been the real leader anyway - Alec was. He had organised TC so it would run smoothly without a leader before he left. Now would be no different.
Alec was ecstatic. He would have moved back to Seattle to be with Max, but it wasn't really an option he had been looking forward to. He'd been hoping to convince Max to stay, but he never thought she would have been able to give up her ties to Seattle without a fight. His heart almost burst as he realised just how deep her love for him was. Never again would he doubt her love - not deep down anyway.
"Max you will love it here, I promise. Come on, I can't wait to show you around and introduce you everyone," he said excitedly.
"But are you sure you want to see everything now? Maybe we could start with my, I mean, our bedroom?" he said hopefully, like a little boy. She almost caved at the cute and endearing look on his face, but she stood her ground. There would be plenty of time for that later.
"I want to see our new home. I want to love it the way you do," she answered seriously. Alec's face fell at the thought of no immediate lovemaking.
"I'll make it worth your while, later." she murmured seductively in response to the crestfallen look on his face. Alec's eyes lit up at the provocative promise.
Together they made their way out of the apartment building. They walked through the settlement, arms wrapped around each other, not caring if the whole world saw their love for one another. Bic smiled as they walked by laughing and joking. She was glad they had found each other. Everyone deserved to be as happy as her and Tai.