Title: Harm's Way
Author: Bent137
Chapter: Six
Rating: R, Violence, Language.
Genre: Angst, Humor
Pairing: M/A Friendship with undertones, M/L angst
Summary: Max finds out how Seth came to die, and she's none too pleased.
Disclaimer: I do not own anything at all to do with Dark Angel, if I did it would still be on the air.
Author's Note: First, Thanks to Adrolien for taking a chance an unknown and new writer and betaing. This is a response to a challenge posted at NWP. It's the "After Seth" challenge posted by Vanessa_TaleWeaver, and includes spoilers for the entire run of the show and the first book "Before The Dawn."
Challenge: Here are the parameters:
1) Can be set anytime season 2, after freak nation, or in an alternate universe.
2) Alec and Joshua must help Max work through the fall out. OC would be nice too, but that's not compulsory.
3) Sketchy must make an appearance, in which he shows he's not as dumb as he usually acts. (long or as short as you want.)
4) Max must confront Logan about not telling her about Seth, and they need to have a rip-roaring fight.
5) Someone needs to point out to Logan that the deal he made with Max was extremely heedless of her safety, given what happened to Seth.
6) Logan cannot be portrayed as stupid or maliciously selfish. Narrow-minded, blinkered, and not nearly as accepting of Max's special abilities as he pretends to be, sure!
7) One of Max's other siblings must be mentioned. Living or dead, real-time or flashback, mentioned in passing or full-blown guest appearance - anything goes.
8) Whether Max forgives Logan or gets together with Alec is up to you. BUT she cannot blame any part of this mess on Alec, and they must be friendly, at least, at the end. Hot love and steamy sex are always preferred, however.
9) Alec cannot be the one to tell Max about how Seth died. He can be the first to know, but he cannot be the one to actually tell her.
Chapter Six: Let's Stay Together.... Click.
Max walked briskly into headquarters and glanced around. She spied Mole leaning against a nearby wall, cigar in mouth as usual. She made her way over to him and he looked up.
"Mole, can you send some people over to Logan's with instructions to confiscate his computer, all his disks, and do a thorough search of his apartment for any information he has that is either about us or may be of use. Alec's there standing guard until they arrive."
Mole smiled broadly, "No problem." He gave her a mock salute and walked away, his step had more bounce in it than Max had ever seen.
She suppressed a renegade smile and made her way up to Dix. "I wanted to thank you for what you did."
"No problem Max."
"Well as a reward you're going to be receiving new equipment and files to comb through."
"Logan's?"
"Yeah."
"Okay, no problem."
Max gave him a grateful smile then headed toward makeshift office, thankful it had a door and was semi-private. Shutting the door she ignored the paperwork on her desk and sank into the chair behind it. She buried her head in her hands and breathed deeply, trying to force the sobs that threatened to bubble to the surface back to the murky depths of her stomach. She closed her eyes, and in the movie theatre of her head she could see the events of that night with perfect clarity...
... There were two guards outside with a Lexus and a Hummer. After she'd made her way past them and into the space needle she noticed the elevators indicator lights giving away the location of the deal. Choosing to take the stairs instead she slipped into the stairwell and noticed the wet footprints leading up. She climbed steadily, losing breath as she emerged onto the level that had once been the dining room. As she stood there in the dark she heard Seth's voice, mocking her.
"Christ, do a sit-up once in a while, why don't you?"
She had whirled around and in true Manticore fashion the two had danced around each other, wondering why the other was there, suspecting each other to be a traitor. Seth's face when she accused him of being with Lydecker was confused and hurt. There wasn't time to dwell on that though as they had heard the sound of vehicles and rushed to the window. Standing beside her brother, they stared down in growing horror at the Manticore vehicles pulling in at odd angles. She thought he sold her out and initiated an attack on him. He defending himself physically and verbally.
"Max, I swear-- I'm not with him. I don't know how he found us." He blocked her punches.
"Sis-- we both need to get out of here." He was pleading with her now.
She thought Seth was stupid as he brought the elevators up. Together they shoved tables into the elevators to keep them up, forcing Lydecker's men to climb the stairs. They escaped to the observation deck where the deal was going down. In the confusion a brawl broke out. She saw Seth fighting two Koreans in the rain. It was almost slow motion as she defended herself and noticed Kafelnikov aiming his gun at Seth and firing even as Max yelled a warning above the wind to her brother. At that point Seth and Sterling, both clinging to the briefcase, toppled over the edge. Max threw the end of the rope to Seth. She worked to pull him to safety but was shocked when someone grabbed her from behind. Max twisted in the air as she got thrown over the edge, her hands grasping at Kafelnikov's jacket. They fought still to get back to safety, however with the soldiers rapidly approaching it was nearly pointless. She looked down into Seth's face, he was staring up at her as a single tear trickled down his cheek, blending with the rain.
"Sorry, Max."
She watched helplessly as he let go of the rope. She dangled there watching Seth falling, silently, smiling at his sister despite Jared Sterling's terrified screaming and flapping his arms, causing the briefcase to burst open and money to rain down...
She was startled from her memories by the sound of her phone ringing, and quickly dug the phone from her pocket.
"Go for Max."
At first it was silent, but then trumpets suddenly began. Her brow furrowed as a voice began singing.
"I, I'm so in love with you. Whatever you want to do is alright with me. But you make me feel so brand new. And I want to spend my life with you." Her brow furrowed deeper. Who the hell was calling her and playing this song. "Let me say that since, since we've been together. Oo, loving you forever is what I need. Let me be the one you come running to. And I'll never be untrue." It was a nice song, an easy rhythm to groove to. "Oh baby, let's, let's stay together. Loving you whether, whether times are good or bad, happy or sad." Realizing it was Logan she hung up. Just as she did a knock came on her door without waiting for a response Alec walked in.
"Rude much?"
"I'm sorry, were you on the phone?" he asked.
"Uh, yeah, but it's no big deal. It was just Logan."
Alec's brow furrowed, "Why was he calling?"
"He was just trying to win me back by playing me a silly song."
"Oh. I came to see if you're okay."
"I'm always alright."
"No, Max. You're not me so don't even try that line."
"Maybe I'm not okay," she looked down, "But I will be. Eventually."
"I know. If you want to talk though, or anything, I'm not good at this, but you know what I mean."
"Yeah. Thanks Alec. I think I'm just going to go home."
Alec nodded, "Okay. Get some sleep, I'll see you tomorrow."
"Bye Alec."
"Bye Max."
She walked out the door and Alec sighed, pulling out his cell phone and dialing.
"Hey Cindy, it's Alec. Are you at your and Max's place?" There was a pause as he listened to the other end. "Well, you might want to be." He was silent again. "Just trust me, you want to be there."
*
"So she really broke it off with the human?" A group of transgenics were sitting discussing the latest development of their leader's life.
"Sure did," Mole said proudly. "Confiscated his computer and everything."
"Can you blame her?"
"Why? What happened?" questioned a younger X-Series, named Cody.
"She found out he was responsible for her brother's death."
"Really?"
"It was messy," said an X-5 named Bethany, "My mate helped bring in his equipment. He told me Alec was there with a gun on the human. Can you believe the human was crying as they took the equipment? He was even stupid enough to try to stop them, but Alec warned him into staying put."
Mole snorted, "So how many bullets went into him?"
"None, but his couch can't say the same. I mean it was like a quarter of an inch from his hand as he got up."
"Alec is awesome," added an X-6.
A chorus of agreement filled the air and Mole suppressed the urge to chuckle as he got up and left the scene.
*
Max was surprised to see Cindy home when she got there.
"What are you doing home?" Max asked taking off her jacket. "I figured you'd be out trying to find yourself a new flava."
"What, can't O.C. chill in her own crib once in a while?"
"Well yeah, sure I just thought, wait. Alec called you didn't he?"
"I don't know why Alec would call me boo. Why would Alec call me tonight?"
Max sighed, knowing he did, "I found out who was responsible for Seth's death."
"Oh, who was it?"
"Logan."
O.C.'s face softened as Max started crying and Cindy quickly pulled her onto the couch, hugging her tightly. "It'll be alright boo."
"No it won't. I confronted Logan. I said awful things to him and told him I never wanted to see him again. I even sent some of the X's to confiscate his equipment."
"He'll understand."
"I hope so. He already tried calling me."
"What did he say?"
"Nothing, he played me a song, Let's Stay Together."
"How dare he ruin that song for you."
"I was thinking more like, 'How dare he call,' but yours is okay too."
"So what do you want to do now?"
"Right now I just want to sleep."
"Go on boo, go to bed. You need anything you just call Original Cindy."
To Be Continued...