Summary: Max gets to know Nina then joins Alec for a late-night viewing of our (well, my) favorite mutant movie. Also foreshadows for the return of Syl & Krit.

Disclaimer: All belongs to the great Mr. T (Titanic & Terminator), who I'm still pissed off at for turning Max into a blubbering schoolgirl for the sake of old-man-Logan's ego. Climb out of the cradle, will ya? Anyway, there are also a bit spoilers for X2. I LOVE that movie! I have such a crush on Pyro. Damn, he's hot!

A/N: Oh, gosh, haven't updated for ages. I dunno if anyone's still interested. I've got this on my mind for ages but I promised myself that I wouldn't write any fanfics until I finished all my assignments. But anyway, here I am, with a super long post! Hope y'all enjoy it!

Chapter 11: Mutants

"Dix, just the man I want to see!" Alec walks up behind Dix, who's sitting in front of the computer. "I kinda need a favor, buddy..."

"Yeah, sure, Alec, what do you need?"

"Can you hack into Manticore, look up some files for X5-913?"

"The X you saved this morning, right?" Dix starts to type.

"Yeah... Apparently she was in my unit, but I can't find anyone who remembers her."

"Huh, that's a pickle. I'll see what I can do." Dix manoeuvres the computer – clicking and typing – while Alec stands back and watch. "It's not gonna be easy, everything kinda got fried with the fire. They've loaded the backup into the mainframe, but it'll be tough to hack; lots of firewalls."

"How long do you think it'll take?"

"A couple of hours, a few days, months... who knows? Depends on the type of barriers they put up. When do you need it by anyway?"

"Oh, anytime… I was just kinda curious."

Alec slumps down on the sofa, stretching out his legs in front of him.

"Listen, Alec, this is gonna take a while. Why don't you head home? I'll give you a call if I find something." 

"You sure?"

"Yeah, yeah, go ahead. You X series are never good with the waiting, anyway."

"Thanks, pal."

***

It's already dark by the time Max stops by the infirmary to pick up Nina. When she comes in, Max sees Nina sitting on her bed. She appears to be... talking to herself?

"Ni-na... Nee-na... Nin-na..." the former X5-913 seems to be trying out her name, "Ni-naa?"

Max smiles at that. She never knows what it feels like to have a new name. She's had her name for as long as she can remember. Her siblings thought that they'd be more like a family if everyone's got their own names. It must be really weird, having a new name, when all your life you've only been called by a designation.

"Hey, how're you doing?"

Upon hearing Max's voice, Nina scrambles to stand, seemingly embarrassed to be caught talking to herself.

"Uh, yeah, good."

"Bullet wound ok?"

"Yeah, that medic patched me up real good."

"Great. I found you a place to crash. You ready to go?" Max waits for Nina to nod before walking out of the infirmary.

Nina follows her, clutching her abdomen. It doesn't hurt that much anymore, but it still pains her to walk. She doesn't want to give the impression that she's a weak soldier, though, especially since this female in front of her seems to be in charge. Nina does her best to look tough.

They walk for several blocks without saying a word.

"Where's 494?"

"Alec. His name is Alec. You know, you gotta start calling people by their names. We're not just numbers anymore."

 "Okay… Um, Max, isn't it?"

"Yeah, and you're Nina. See how nice it is when we use names?"

Nina just nods as they enter Gem's house.

"Well, this is the place. You'll be living with another X5. Her name's Gem and she has a baby..." Nina's eyes turn wide at that. Max explains, "Breeding program." Nina nods. "Yeah, first trannie baby born on the outside world. We're all so proud of her. Anyway, her name's Liberty. Gem's usually on mess hall duty, so she won't be around much. And Liberty's usually with Joshua – you'll meet him later on – so you pretty much have the house to yourself."

Nina says nothing. Max walks to one of the bedrooms, "Now I'm guessing that this is your room…" She sees that Gem has made the bed and has even put fresh flowers (well, as fresh as you'll get 'em in TC) on the night stand.

Nina walks around the room, observing the place.

"All this... this is just for me?"

"Yeah, we give better services than Manticore."

Nina just nods. The girl still seems to be fascinated by the room. Max doesn't blame her, considering the miniscule concrete cells they got back at the 'Core.

"So anyway, are you hungry? Gem's cooking Nachos for dinner if you want to eat something."

"Okay." Nina follows Max out of the room. When they've reached outside, Nina suddenly speaks up, "Hey, Max, can I ask you something?"

"Shoot."

Nina looks at her with puzzlement, "Are you the CO around here?"

"CO? Hell no! We're not Manticore, ok? So you can screw the chain of command. Do anything you like. Don't address people as 'sir' or 'mam' or whatever…"

Nina contemplates this, "I don't know if I can get used to this..."

"Hey, you were out for a year before you came here. You didn't follow anyone's orders, did you?"

"Well, no, but I was always searching for my unit. 49 – I mean, Alec – is the first one I've seen."

"I still can't believe that Alec was a CO! Tell me, did he pull the old 'you are a unique soldier, unlike any other?' line on you?"

Nina looks confused, "No, he was a great CO. He excelled at everything, followed orders perfectly, successful at missions..."

Max thinks that Nina may have mistaken Alec for another twin. Who knows, maybe Ben had another one!

"Alec? Following orders??"

"You know him well, Max?"

"Well, he's kinda been tagging along ever since the fire..."

"Maybe he sees a strategic advantage in staying close to you?"

"Yeah, in getting bitch-slapped all the time! But… I guess I'm kinda used to him by now. First time I met him? Easily the most irritating person I ever met. He was such a smart-ass. So cocky and all 'hey ladies, check me out!' And he kept butting in where he didn't belong..."

"'Sounds like he's changed. I don't know, Max. I haven't seen him since my mission. Someone said he went to re-indoctrination. I never found out why..."

Max feels like she probably shouldn't divulge Alec's personal story of Rachel to this stranger.

"So how did you two meet?"

"Manticore paired us off for their sick and twisted breeding program."

"So are you two...?"

"What?"

"Well, you know, 'partners'?"

"Me and Alec? God, no! We didn't even... back at Manticore, we never... you know… we were never like that."

"Okay..." Nina looks placid before slightly breaking into a dreamy smile, "Great!"

Max catches that. She frowns before she opens the door to mess hall.

Figures.

***

Alec's plan for the evening is to spend some quality time with his boob tube. He's moved into Joshua's apartment about a week ago after Max kicked him out of his place to make room for more trannies. Joshua took him in on one condition. Since the big fella's not a big fan of "Alec's noisy hot medium" (courtesy of the last time they lived together), he told the X5 to install it in his own bedroom.

At the moment, the fine-looking transgenic is sprawled on his bed, munching on a box of Lucky Charms the Original had managed to smuggle in. He puts a green leprechaun-shaped marshmallow in between his fingers and holds it up against the light.

"Top of the mornin' to you, Mr. Charms," he says in his best Irish accent before popping the chewy leprechaun into his mouth. "Hmm, sugary goodness…"

On the screen is a pre-pulse special marathon of the X-Men movie series (they managed to get up to X3 before the pulse shut them down). Apparently, ever since the siege began, the mutant theme has grown increasingly popular – hey, people are curious and where else can they turn to other than the good ol' tube? In order to minimize pro-mutant feelings, though, the stations have decided to put shows like the X-Men on the wee hours of the morning.

Alec finds it especially amusing that they're portraying mutants as having laser eyes and adaman-whatchamacallit claws. Yeah, if only...

Still, he thinks that the shape-shifting chick's really hot and he definitely has a soft spot for the one who can't touch people. Hmm, why DO I always go for the ones I can't have?

Alec's up to X2 when Max walks in. She leans in on his doorway and looks as if it's perfectly natural for her to be there.

"Well?"

"Glad to see you too, Maxie. To what do I owe the pleasure of your company? You know, at three in the morning?"

Max shrugs. "It's not like we sleep anyway."

"No, Max, you don't sleep. I don't have shark DNA. So I need my beauty sleep."

Max glances at the TV and the box of Lucky Charms, "Well, I don't see you snoozing there, sleeping beauty."  Max looks at the screen. A girl just walked through walls and another dude just shish-ke-bobbed a bunch of military guys with his very long claws. "God, what kind of junk are you watching?"

Despite her condescending sneer though, Max flops down on Alec's bed, eyes fixed on the screen.

"I'll have you know that this 'junk' is directly related to our cause. It's about a bunch of mutants just tryin' to get by in a world that hates them. This bald guy got most of 'em holed up in this fancy-schmancy private school, tryin' to shield them off from the nasty humans… You know, if you switch baldie here with you, we can almost call it 'Maxie and the Great Trannie Siege of 2021'."

"Hey, it would've been so much worse if we'd scattered and run!" Max snaps back testily.

"I know, I know. I was just kiddin'. Lighten up, Maxie! I'm sure a sense of humor is in that tough-chick shell somewhere…"

Max rolls her eyes, "Whatever… Did you find anything on our girl?"

"Nope. A big fat zero. No one remembers her! I swear it's like she was never at Manticore. I got Dix to dig around the Core's old files, though. He'll beep if anything comes up."

"Great…" Max makes herself comfortable on his bed and eyes his collection of snacks. "Give me that." Max yanks the box of Lucky Charms from Alec's hands, "I'm starving. 'Just spent the night babysittin' your girl. I don't know how anyone doesn't remember her.  All she did was yapped."

"What can I say, Maxie? My unit was blessed with the art of oral eloquence."

"Eloquent, my ass! There was only one subject she was interested about." Max looks at him with condescension on her face.

"What? If I had to take a stab at it, I'd say she was wondering... about the shape of Mole's tongue?"

"What IS the shape of Mole's tongue, anyway? I heard blue and split's up by a hundred bucks. I don't think it's blue, though. 'Kinda got a peek of it once when he yelled at me for sitting on his cigars. But anyway, no, Nina was asking about YOU a lot."

"Ahh, it's always nice to have admirers."

"I swear it's like she's been idolizing you ever since Manticore."

"I was an inspiring leader."

"And yet you don't remember her!"

"Hey, this ain't making sense for me too. I NEVER forget a face… usually."

"Well, are you gonna go for it?"

"What?"

"Nina!"

"I don't know. She is kinda cute."

"A bit young for your taste, don't you think?"

"Oh, come on, Max! You, out of all people, should know that age doesn't matter when it comes to relationships!"

"Whatever. Just don't screw up like you did at Jam Pony. We need all the soldiers we can have without you going around breaking all their poor little hearts."

"Hey, I never told ANY of them that we were exclusive. 'Couldn't help it if they made all these little assumptions…"

Max just shrugs and turns her attention back to the TV. A group of people are sitting around in a living room. A spiky-haired dude just gave a wonderful display of turning scalding hot tea into a cup-shaped icicle. But that's not what catches her eyes, "Hey, that kid kinda looks like Ben when he was younger!"

"Yeah, right. Well, I sure didn't look like that kid. Hey, what is he doing? Oh, I can't believe this, he's ratting them out! He's ratting out his own brother! That lil' snitch!"

"I swear it's the spitting image…" Max still goes on about the uncanny resemblance between Ronny Drake and young Ben. She shakes out her thoughts and shrugs. Maybe Ben's got dozens of twins. Who knows? "So what's this bitch about again?"

Alec tries to explain to her with one eye on the screen. "I told you. It's about this group of mutants. A bit overdone, if you asked me. Like, see that, he just blew out a couple of police cars! Well, that guy's supposed to have this 'power' to control fire. 'Wish Manticore thought of that when they made us. It'd be a handy talent. Plus that just LOOKS cool. Whoa, see that car fly!"

Max rolls her eyes at his child-like excitement.

"And that guy cowering away on the ground? He can make ice with his hands. Good party trick. And his girlfriend there has 'deadly' skin. She sucks the power out of anyone she touches. Like see there? Oh, why does she have to ruin that dude's barbecue? Yeah, well, basically she can kill anyone by a simple touch…" Alec pauses as he contemplates what he just said. "Hey, that sounds kinda like your thing, Max! Maybe this isn't that fictional after all."

"Shut up! Don't get me started on that one. You know that it's all your fault, right?"

"Hey, I already told you. I DIDN'T give you the virus. And I already apologized for that lab guy. What else do you want me to say?"

Max doesn't answer. She just fixes her gaze on the TV. To Alec's surprise, she doesn't look pissed. She just looks… sad.

Alec decides to go soft on her. "How're you going with Logan anyway? He's searching for the cure? Fighting the good fight?"

Max sighs, "I don't even know. I haven't seen him since that night at OC's. And I've just been so busy here that I don't really have time to think about it. 'Guess it gets easier everyday. I mean, it's all for the best, right?"

Alec doesn't know what to say. What does Max expect to hear? That she and Logan have been completely wrong for each other from the start? That a relationship with an ordinary is completely doomed? That she deserves someone who understands her better? Someone who's her equal? Someone like…

Alec figures that Max won't want to hear any of this. So he just says the first thing that comes to mind. "Sure."

After that, neither of them says anything more to each other. They just go back to watching the TV quietly. When Alec turns to look at her at the end of X2, he finds that Max has fallen asleep.

"'Guess, you sleep after all, sharkie."

He grabs a blanket and covers her with it. She shifts slightly and turns on her side, facing the middle of the bed toward Alec. After she's all covered up, Alec lies down on his side, facing her. He studies her face.

Alec decides that he likes watching Max sleep. When she's awake, her face is always lined with worry and stress (and not to mention the bitchy remarks that come out of her mouth). But now, she just looks so serene and peaceful. He closes his eyes and, within a few minute, falls into deep slumber.

They remain like that for the entire night and that is exactly how Syl and Krit find them the morning.

A/N: So whaddya all think?? What do u think's gonna happen with Nina? What do you think of X2? What do you think of the return of Syl & Krit? I accept any comments/suggestions that you have… So yeah, review away!