Disclaimer: See first eleven chapters.

A/N: I am ashamed to say that I have had this bit written for several months. I hadn't posted it because I didn't like the feel of the "ending" or how it didn't even feel like a whole "chapter"; however, my severe writer's block prevented me from adding anymore. I know where I'm going, but I've lost my way there. I just wanted to post this to prove: (1) I am not dead, and (2) that latest bit wasn't where the story ended. I'm sorry--as if you aren't already sick of apologies--and thank you for bearing with me.

Chapter 12

Dix's stubbly fingers tapped on the counter as the phone rang in his ear for the fourth time before the voicemail kicked in. Dix slammed down the receiver angrily, having been thwarted by technology and bad karma yet again. "He's still not answering his cell."

"They may have gotten back only five minutes ago, but Alec has had to have seen the news by now, they're showing it everywhere," Mole responded before he binged on a shooter. Alcohol was such a rare commodity in Terminal City, not unlike legal money in the day's thriving economy. But given the events, Mole hardly felt bad for his splurge. A double-splurge actually, seeing has he'd forced some of the much needed liquid-relaxant down Dix's gullet to get him to settle down to this state of unrest.

"Well, he's not at his apartment. Where could he be?" Dix asked the otherwise empty Command Center, the words faintly echoing off the walls and the numerous computers strewn haphazardly around the room. Mole glanced around the room, as if the rusting pipes and slimy floors could supply any answer. He grimaced slightly at the general disorder and astounding lack of cleanliness of the place. The Manticore in him liked everything as clean as possible. But Terminal City's rusted out Hibachi grill of a command center had it's own personal appeal, the dirt and decay just a few more homey touches to this god forsaken place.

But in the layers of dust and the boot prints tatooed across the floor in their oil-and-mud ink, something whispered. The whisper grew louder although the silence remained the same, like an imperceptible shift of a ghost walking by one's body.

Realization dawning, they turned to each other. "Max." It didn't matter who said it first since they were both surfing the same airwave.

A small silence lapsed between the two, Dix trying to find something, anything, semi-useful to do. Mole just sat in his chair lazily sucking down his latest round of cigars, loving the feel of the smoke rolling off of his dry tongue. "She doesn't have a TV," the lizardman noted matter-of-factly, trying to show less emotion than he felt on the subject. "She has no idea."

"Well I don't envy his job right now," Dix replied dryly before giving up on the pretense of work. "What a day. I'm going to bed." Mole seemed to agree to the idea and pushed his chair back, following him out the door, flicking off the lights behind him. The rain plummeted through the small fractures in the roof, the pace speeding up as the storm finished her warm-up scales and began her opening number. Her notes' noisy, wet rhythm mimicked Alec's footfalls as he raced through puddles and driving rain.

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"The rain's picked up again," Max noted to herself. Her fingers wound in and out of her hair retrieving the last of the bobby pins. She discarded them with a blissful sigh on the card table that was recovered from the trash weeks ago. (A little hammering here, a screw there, and the table had been renovated from trash into a coffee and dining table, plus logging a few hours as an ironing board if the occasion called for it.) "What a release," she murmured, releasing the last locks of hair from their internment camp - since now the war against the gala was over and they had reigned victorious - the skinny, black POWs returned blissfully to their homeland about her shoulders, a little worse for wear after the combined torturing devices of hair spray and bobby pins had been laid against them. Max scratched her tingling scalp vigorously as the blood returned.

There was a splash behind the closed door of bathroom. Ray, who'd fought so bitterly to get in the soapy bath water, was now reluctant to come out. "Three more minutes, Ray," Max called through the door after crossing the living room/bedroom/home office.

A few more splashes swam to her ears with much gusto, as if daring her to enforce her words. "Yes, ma'am." Ray's little soldier voice dripped with sarcasm, but she ignored the tone knowing he'd be obedient. As usual. Even if he was in a rebellious frame of mind his body wouldn't be able to hold out long; it was after two already. Dark circles under his eyes had been sufficient evidence of exhaustion when she'd picked him up from Joshua's several minutes ago. The original plan had been for him to spend the night in Joshua's bigger, surprisingly more kid-friendly flat. But after Gem had dropped off a grumpy baby before her big date that night, any pretense of sleep had gone out the window for either of the older parties.

Ray loved babies of course, particularly Gem's little runt, but even hours of hand games and pick-a-boo and smothering her dark little head with kisses had ceased to amuse her. When Max had stopped by at about quarter 'til two offering to take him home, Ray jumped at the chance to leave the baby in Joshua's hands with unusual compliance. He was only six after all, and a crabby baby was more than his resume advertised for.

Breaking her musings, Alec blasted through the door then, nearly splintering the hinges and dripping from head to foot. The hair plastered to his head hung low over his brow leaving Max suddenly wondering when he exactly got his last haircut. Mud and gravel bits clung to his calves and lower thighs for dear life, staining the tuxedo pants beyond restoration to the ultra-chic starch and ease they held only hours before as Alec twirled lady after lady across the dance floor. The shirt clung to his body like a wet, cottony second skin, nearly as white as his face.

"Alec, what...?"

"Is Ray here?" he blurted, eyes swinging about the room madly as if he planned to find a blond tuft of hair sticking out from behind the couch, curtains, or the dirty plates on the counter.

"He's just getting done with his bath," Max said slowly. "Did I miss DefCon 3 or something?"

"He's gotta go back to Joshua's," Alec said, still huffing and puffing. He looked an absolute fright. Alec's body dipped back out the still open door. "Come on, Josh!" he hollered impatiently. The floor, already unstable due to age and bad blue prints, fairly shook as Joshua's heavy footsteps amplified down the hallway. Blurring towards the pad Max and Ray shared, Alec had made only the slightest stop at Joshua's apartment, giving him a three second synopsis before continuing his dash.

"But Gem's baby..."

"Went home with Gem," Josh wheezed as he re-enacted Alec's finish-line sprint through the doorway. "Ray'll spend the night with me."

"But..."

"Now!" Both Alec and Joshua ground the word out simultaneously. Both hunched over from their run, gasping as if Hell itself had encroached on their heels on the trek here.

"He has to pack," Max said blankly, not having the slightest clue what was going on and, due to the emotional and physical wringer Alec and the gala had put her through during the last 36 hours, not having the strength to care or at the very least become angry.

"Stuff at my place," Josh said. Even his bottomless reserve of patience was wearing thin as he watched Alec's resolve crumble. He felt sorry for the younger transgenic, having to be the bearer of such bad news, but he also instinctively knew that Alec would much rather be there for Max when she found out than having her hear it from another source alone.

"Aunt Max, what's going on?" Ray stepped out of the bathroom in a pair of cut up old sweatpants, rubbing his ever growing blonde hair vigorously with a towel, in dire need of a good cleaning itself. Water droplets still glistened off his young skin in the warm lamplight. He'd always struggled with the concept of actually using the towel on his body, preferring to just dig in his hair. Letting a body drip dry was more natural, or so he'd always claimed.

Before Max could tell him to at least dry off his back, Joshua lumbered over to the kid with amazing speed, picking up a random blue T-shirt on the floor and throwing it at him. "We have to go back to my place," he said simply.

Obediently pulling the shirt over his head, Ray cringed as day old sweat in the armpits of the sleeves clung to the watery dampness of his underarms. Once the offending article of clothing covered all necessary body parts, Ray glanced back and forth between the three adults, a confused look lingering in his blue eyes, as if to ask, "What now?" Max's face only mirrored his own confusion and exhaustion to boot, not having truly slept in over a week. Alec seemed pained and desperate; Joshua's sympathetic face leaned in that particular direction also.

"Come on Ray," the dogman commanded softly. He snatched a quilt off the back of the couch, used to cover the holes in the upholstery, and wrapped it around Ray's lean body to keep him warm against the rain. The boy, mummified by calico patchwork, went into Joshua's arms without protest. Nodding to the other two silent parties, the older transgen carried the boy back out the door and almost noiselessly closed the nearly broken entrance with a yeti-like foot.

"What was that all about?" Max asked in soft bewilderment, still swimming through the misty daze. Her gaze finally drifted from the door to her companion. Seeing her finally look back at him again, he felt the full weight of what he was about to do, the fragile world he was about to destroy with two simple words.

Logan's dead. It was all so straightforward: Two words, 10 letters and an apostrophe.

Alec's jaw opened and closed repeatedly like a fish out of water. His vocal cords stopped working, shriveling up more and more as Max's eyes continued to question him, the confused and tired frown burrowing deeper. Some part of Alec wondered if he'd ever see her smile again like she had for Logan, with that touch of unreservedness shining solely for him.

A small grunt bordering on an unmanly whimper tickled at Alec's vocal cords, assuring him that they were up and running again. He cleared his throat raggedly, the fingers of his right hand needing activity dove for cover under his shaggy hair. He sighed slowly, breathing in and out so deeply he could have been the poster child for Lamaze classes.

"We have to talk Max."

"About what?"

Silence. Alec took her in one last time, wanting to always remember her in this moment. Hair dangling like the branches of black weeping willow, brushing against her shoulders every time her head dared move; the locks, still caked with hair spray and a stray bobby pin grasping at a wisp of dark hair here and there. Brown eyes wide and full of life. And that dress, that dress would be sinned against if ever forced to caress the intimate curves of another female form again. She looked so domestic and regally angelic at once and so...innocent.

Alec felt his eyes plugged up quickly, but he forced a brave smile on his face. "Maybe you should get a bit more comfortable first, change your clothes?" The moment of cowardliness was only going to make it more difficult to relay the bad news in the long run, but it seemed worth it if only to keep Max in that if not blissful, then at least comprehensible world of hers a short while longer.

"Okay." Max was still looking at him strangely.

She slipped silently through the eroding sheet draped across the doorway of her room, leaving Alec alone for a short spell to collect his thoughts. A worn dresser creaked sorely as Max rummaged around for a top and soft foot falls padded back and forth across the floor. In Alec's ears the silence of the apartment rang with the swish of a zipper sliding up and a soft expulsion of breath.

Max emerged moments later, far removed from her princess costume and looking much the same as the last time Alec had waited for her to slip out of her attire into something more comfortable--after she'd presented herself as a lawyer from the District Attorney's office when he'd been identified as the man behind his twin brother's villainous crimes prior to his death. A loose-fitting pair of jeans fell across her legs just as naturally as her dress before, while her upper body took cover under a red hoodie. A hairbrush attacked her hair with forced restraint and the hairspray and gel released their hold with a snarl.

"Much better," she mumbled softly to herself, nearly forgetting Alec's unusually silent presence. With her backside to him she crossed towards the kitchen, her bare feet braved the floor in the face of makeshift games, sticky spills, and other entrapments Ray had miraculously forgotten to clean up in days prior. "You want some coffee? Dix scored me some," she offered over her shoulder, already filling a teapot with water.

While his brain crisscrossed and stuttered over several possible declining responses, his mouth was much more fluent. As Max had more than once wondered, his mouth did indeed have a mind of its own. A soft "sure" slipped off his tongue from somewhere, going in much the opposite direction that his mind wanted to go. Alas, as often was the case when around Max.

"Coming right up." She placed the teapot on the stove before drawing two rather dicey-looking mugs from an even more dicey-looking cupboard.

The short moments Alec had bought were soon spent, and he wrapped his fingers around a fresh cup of brew. How to start? "Max...uh...sit down."

Max, sipping her own coffee, stared over the brim of her cup blankly, seeming to comprehend the words no more than if he'd said them in Sanskrit. Plopping his mug down on the counter with more force than he intended, he crossed quickly to her and pulled her towards the couch in the living room.

"Alec, what is up? You're acting crazy," was Max's only sign of complaint as he fairly threw her against the couch.

"Max, there was an accident this morning...no, no," joining her on the couch, he grasped her warm palms in his wet, cold ones and pulled them towards his lap. He began again. "Logan went out on some Eyes Only business this morning and...and things went wrong." He subconsciously gave her palms a comforting squeeze before dropping them. "He's dead, Max. One bullet to the back of the head. Execution style. He died immediately, not suffering," he stopped his ramble with what he hoped was a reassuring offer. As reassuring as circumstances would allow anyway.

If Alec had expecting an onslaught of tears or anger or disbelief, he'd have been romantically deluding himself. She didn't cry or attack him, charging like a black-haired bull enraged at these vicious lies. She didn't react. Her demeanor didn't change, not so much as a stiffening of the limbs or a stray tear. For a second he wondered if somehow her supersensitive ears had somehow not heard him, but as he looked into her brown eyes he saw she had caught every word.

There was an alertness lying in those brown depths that recognized word and meaning, but reacted with so little passion he could have told her that the next food delivery was to be pushed back a day or two when they were already stocked for a good month. He'd seen her react stronger when Normal had given her a sector assignment she didn't want or an extra package to deliver. There was no crackle or snap in her eyes, as if she were aware of words and meaning without awareness of actual emotions.

Her eyes were nearly a Manticorean blank, but not cold so much as they lacked her warmth, which somehow made them seem cooler than any other set of eyes he'd ever seen.

"Oh," she whispered. Not so much a realization as much as a filler word. "Oh."