A/N- WOW the 99 reviews were amazing thank you so much to everyone who replied! There were so many that in order to reply I had to post them on the next page instead of a chapter, Thanks to Itay and Kat!!!! My betas!
A/N2- Well spotted those who noted Alec called her his mate. Yes I am feeling better now thank you to those that asked- you guys rock!
This is to everyone that asked after Joshua.
Floating in the dawn
Forward, two, three, pause. Back, two, three, pause. Forward, two three, pause.
Zack was pacing… again, his face set in a furrow of concentration and his hands clasped behind his back. He paced the same six feet of carpet and had been now for over twenty minutes. Well, twenty-one minutes and fifteen seconds and if he did one more circuit, Ben was going to forget his own promise to Max and knock him over, wrench Zack's teeth out and make a frigging necklace.
"Zack, quit it!" Jondy finally yelled. "The guy will turn up when he bloody well turns up! If you pace once more, I swear I'll garrotte you!!"
Everyone stared at the irate redhead as she clenched her jaw, some in empathy, and some in amusement. Jondy pushed her flaming red hair over her shoulder and swallowed, her smile forced.
"Thank you."
Ben hid a grin from them all, it seemed he wasn't the only one with control issues!
Of course he was sure that Jondy wasn't likely to attack Zack literally, although he could live in hope.
They were all sat around the abandoned house waiting for a contact to arrive so that they could put their plan into action; it was a good plan and one that relied on precise timing and information that they had gathered the other evening.
Ben calmed down as he thought of those few precious moments when he had seen Max again, her hair flying as she fought with passion and vigour, showing that clone, or twin or whatever, who was boss.
The sound of squeaking startled him out of his musings and alerted them that someone was coming down the hallway.
Zack's head snapped up and he slipped behind the door. Ben rolled his eyes and lay back on the sofa.
"Tense much?" he offered and Zack glared at him.
"Well, he knows we are supposed to be here," Ben held his hands wide and grinned. "Besides what are you gonna do, jump out and say boo?"
Zack moved with as much dignity as he could and smacked Ben upsides the head so that he moved and Zack could sit on the sofa too.
"Dumbass."
"Jerk."
They hissed at each other.
"Hello?"
The voice echoed through the hollow corridor and they all turned away from the antics of their brothers to greet the man who came through the door.
Tinga was the first to speak.
"Hello, Mr Cale."
----
Alec edged slowly down the hall trying to keep out of reach of the guards who prowled around on the night watch so that he could reach his destination without too much trouble. It wasn't that the guards would report him if they found him out of bounds, they were more loyal to him that to Renfro, but if it came down to being loyal to him or keeping their jobs so that they had a steady pay check to feed their families… Well, he'd rather not have to make them make the choice.
He was headed to Max's cell, he knew that there was still some things that they had to talk through, issues of trust and other things that needed to be said and, to be honest, he missed just being able to sit and chat with her about anything. He missed the way she'd cock her head and bit her lip when she was really listening and the way she'd absently rub his back or his shoulder in sympathy. The few minutes that they had had earlier in the Med Bay weren't enough to go through everything and as C.O.s they had a lot to talk about.
Lame excuse. Alec grinned to himself as he made his way down the deserted corridor to the wing where Max's room was located.
He knew that she would be in her cell tonight, even with her Shark DNA. The gym was being refurbished after two females went into heat unexpectedly and the resulting male cat-fight led to three walls with serious structural damage and a Trainer shaped hole in one door. That was one of the only places that Max felt comfortable going during her nocturnal ramblings and without that safe haven she'd be in her cell, probably pacing.
He knew from watching her how much she relied on the time that she spent in the gym, it was a way to clear both her head and her angst. He had lost count of the amount of times that he had stood in the shadows, down in the gymnasium and watched her swing from rope to rope, even when she hadn't been speaking to him, he had just loved to watch her as she demonstrated her flexibility and feline grace, trawling up and down the ropes. Of course, the fact that he was watching her was one of the things that he would never mention to her… not if he ever wanted to be able to have children someday at any rate.
Alec reached Max's cell and knocked quickly on her cell door, glancing up and down the grungy corridor just in case anyone was around.
After a few seconds of not hearing anything Alec tapped again and peered into the small window set in the door, he could just about make out a body shape under the bed covers.
He imagined walking in and slipping under those covers with her, wrapping his arms around her middle and pulling her into his body, feeling her warmth flow over his chest. He'd bury his nose on her hair and inhale that sweet honey scent that was pure Max and she'd stir in her sleep, muttering softly. Alec would let her turn gently in his arms until her sleepy eyes met his and she smiled softly. Then his lips would slowly drift down until they covered hers, coaxing a sigh from her sensual mouth and she'd blink drowsy before her lids would drift down in passion and longing and she'd turn to him, her arms open and accepting.
Alec grinned at the images and tried to push away his reaction to them as he unlocked the door and edged in silently.
"Max?" he whispered quietly knowing that it was loud enough, with her transgenic hearing, for her to wake up. He frowned when there was no movement from the thin coverlet.
"Maxie?" he sang and waited.
Nothing.
Alec frowned, Max never slept that deeply.
"Hey Max, you okay?" He reached down, taking the scratchy cover in one hand and pulled them back in a grand gesture. The cover fell from his hand as his jaw dropped. Instead of a luscious but sleepy, and probably pissed off Max, were two stone cold breeze blocks.
She was gone.
"Oh god!"
Alec felt like someone had snuck in and stolen his lungs, he couldn't drag breath into them and his breathing grew ragged as his head spun.
Where the hell was she? Why wasn't she here?
For some reason he felt his knees give way as the only reason for this subterfuge penetrated his brain.
Max had escaped.
She'd gone. After everything that had gone on in the past few weeks Max had finally had enough and had left.
As he sank to the floor in bitter realisation and disbelief, his mind absently registered dirt beneath his knees and he looked down and under the bed to see the hole in the wall where the breeze blocks had been.
Where Max had gone.
A burning desperation to see her, to find her and drag her back screaming and kicking filled him and he slithered under the bed, through the hole and down the wall to what appeared to be the basement.
It was as dingy as he could recall it being, the wall grungy with age, disuse and damp. The flickering lights gave only minimum light to show the way down the deserted hall way. To his left and right were locked iron doors with only mini windows covered in bars set into the cold metal that hosted various growls and other bestial sounds that made Alec's heart quicken more than he would care to admit.
He hadn't spent that much time down here, not time that he wanted to remember anyway. His time in Psy Ops was, unfortunately, not as deeply repressed as he would like and the scent of old blood, dirty copper and hot metal surfaced in his memories, grabbing at him, trying to force him under its thrall, try to cripple him with fear and stop him from concentrating on what was important.
Alec clung to the wall, his breathing ragged, his palms starting to sweat as the memories swamped him. Hot, pain, drills, laser.
Who are you?
494.
No wait, that's not right.
Alec fought with himself, there was something that he was supposed to remember.
What was it?
What was important?
Max.
The thought cleared out the traces of panic and forced Alec away from the wall that he was desperately clutching at.
He straightened.
Focus on Max.
He couldn't believe that she was trying to escape… or had escaped. After everything that they had just been through, or was it because of what they had just been through, she was just going to leave? Did she really hate him that much, had he messed up that desperately that she was trying to get away from him?
He choked back a sob that he hadn't even realised had been building, the emotions of the place as well as those dredged up by her absence overwhelming him.
He had to find her and convince her to stay, he needed to let her know that—Wait, was that voices ahead?
He rounded the corner and peered through the variety of steaming pipes and hissing machinery to find who was speaking.
Max was sitting cross legged on some boxes, her arms draped casually in her lap, laughing at someone that Alec couldn't see. But he could hear a strong male voice resonating with laughter.
He clenched his jaw.
"So then while I was standing at the window watching, Biggs punched Pix making him drop to the floor, screaming about his sister and then Chance launches herself on his back and they were all just standing there, no clue what to do and then out of the blue Pix yells that he loves Chance. God, you should have seen Biggs's face. He couldn't have been more surprised than if Renfro had hit on him and told him Lydecker was a transvestite."
"Pretty whack!"
Alec tensed. Who was she telling all of this to? So, it wasn't exactly secret but it was personal. For a brief heartbeat he had the scary thought that Max, the '09er, really was feeding information to Lydecker or Renfro about them all.
The thought left a bitter taste in his mouth even as he dismissed it as blatantly ridiculous. Max wasn't a traitor, she proved that every day and he knew that she would never do that, never stoop that low. But, then, who the hell was she talking to so friendlily?
There was a sudden growl and Max paused.
"What's up?" She had lost her happy tone and an edge had risen in her voice.
"New smell," was the reply around the snarl.
Alec stiffened when he realised that he had been found out and with a cocky smile plastered to his lips he stepped around the pipes.
"And I just showered too," he smirked at Max who had jumped into a fighting stance. Her eyes widened when she saw Alec and her hands fell.
"Damn it Alec, you scared the shit outta me, what are you doing here?"
Alec turned to see her companion-- Holy shit! What the hell was that?
Joshua growled at the man that had intruded on his talk time with little fella and bared his teeth trying to intimidate.
Alec stepped back quickly in horror as the monster snarled at him, drool hanging from sharp, decidedly aggressive teeth.
"Whoa, easy big fella," Max soothed as she put her hand on the monster's arm.
Alec couldn't believe it; she was treating it like an actual person.
"Max, what…?"
"Easy Big fella, this is Alec. My friend."
The snarling stopped and the monster sniffed again.
"Cat, cat in cocktail."
"Like me." She smiled up at the seven foot tall man.
"It talks?" Alec croaked.
"Joshua talks," Max glared at him. "Alec this is Joshua, Joshua this is Alec."
Joshua, the giant dog-man, put his head on the side and regarded the man.
"Little fella's friend, Joshua's friend." He held out his hand.
"Uh yeah," Alec hedged as he shook hands, paws… whatever with Joshua while still keeping back- way back.
Joshua sniffed again recognising Alec's scent from before.
"Screaming friend," Joshua suddenly looked sadly at Alec. "Bad screaming, uh Alec, all better now?"
"Sure," Max jumped in, knowing what Joshua was talking about even though it was plain that Alec didn't have a clue. "He's fine."
"Screaming?" Alec frowned wondering what was going on. "Max what are you doing down here with… sasquatch?"
"Joshua," Max emphasised his name.
"Nice name, is it one of yours?" Alec asked sardonically, folding his arms over his chest.
"No. Father named me. First. Special," the man said proudly.
"Uh huh." Alec was none the wiser.
"Joshua was the first transgenic ever made. By Sandman. He doesn't even have a barcode," Max explained, "and no one knows he's down here so you keep quiet, okay?"
"Whatever you say, Max."
Alec regarded her, taking in her casual stance and clothes realising that she wasn't running away, she was… visiting. He grinned relieved that she was down here with… whatever the hell Joshua was and not escaping.
Meanwhile Max turned back to her big friend and hugged him.
"Gonna head out, big fella."
"Okay, little fella."
"Does that make me medium fella?" Alec asked quizzically. But Max ignored him.
"Here's the food I promised and I'll come see you again soon, okay?"
"Max blaze," Joshua grinned.
"Uh Joshua? Drool?" Alec pointed to the dog-mans face and Max elbowed him sharply.
"Later."
-
Alec followed her back down the tunnel, deliriously happy that she wasn't running away, she was just visiting her pet dog-man in the basement. He rolled his eyes at that statement.
Only in Manticore.
"You know you didn't have to be so mean to Joshua, he hasn't done anything to you," Max remarked as she scaled the wall back into her cell and waited for him to crawl in after her.
He handed her the breeze blocks and she slotted them back into place, dusting off her hands and sitting on the bed.
"Well, excuse me if I was a little rattled. I mean, I sneak out to see you in the middle of the night to find you gone and then when I go to find you I see you sitting having tea and cake with Jo-Jo the dog faced boy. I was a little freaked."
"First up – Josh-u-a, nice name use it," she mock glared, "Second up, where the hell did you think I was?"
He shrugged and avoided her eyes, not wanting to taint their newfound relationship or let her know that still didn't really trust her. But Max took one look at his face and she realised.
"Dammit, Alec! You really think I was going to bail? Like I couldn't find easier and less creepy ways of getting out of here. I go on missions all of the time, for Manticore's sake."
"Sorry!" he said meekly. "I was concerned, we haven't really kept in touch and I have no idea what's up with you just recently. That's actually why I came to talk."
"Not to see if I was going to run away?"
"Well, for all I knew you had met some gorgeous transgenic male who was already mated and you were dying of a broken heart and needed to leave to get over him."
Max stared at him.
"Did I tell you that you had issues?"
Alec grinned. "Uh huh."
"Believe me," she emphasised and then smirked, "Smart ass."
"That's smart aleck, and it's Mr. Smart Alec to you."
Max stuck her tongue out at him.
"So where did you meet tall, dark and drool-some?" Alec sat next to her on the bed feeling her warmth against his arm.
"Around," she evaded and he elbowed her gently
"No more secrets, Maxie."
"Ok then. About a year ago Pete came into my cell and told me that my best friend was in Psy-Ops. So, despite all misgivings I went down to the basement with the nomilies." She shivered at the thought and he slung his arm around her silently commiserating with her on that. The basement wasn't exactly his favourite place either.
"There I found Joshua. He helped me find you. In Psy-Ops."
Alec tensed and his heart battered against his rib cage.
"You saw me in Psy-Ops?"
"Yeah," she muttered without apology.
He didn't know what to say to that, his mind blank as it tried to reconcile the fact that Max had seen him at his worst and she then went on to blow his mind.
"Every night."
"What?" He turned to face her, his face a mask of horror.
"I didn't want you to be alone. So every night I crept out of my cell and went down to the basement and stood by the door where you were."
Alec jumped off the bed and paced over to the corner. Max smiled dryly.
"See I knew I shouldn't have told you."
"Told me! What the hell were you doing there?!"
"Phoney sentimentality," she whispered and he spun around.
"What?"
"I thought that perhaps you could… I don't know, maybe feel me there or something, and it wouldn't be so bad," she shook her head at her own foolishness. "I was trying to give you some kind of comfort by just being there. Dumb, huh?"
Alec watched her face as the Manticore mask bled down, masking her real emotions. He knew that she had been to Psy-Ops herself on more that one occasion and that she knew how it was, she knew how it worked.
He was angry that she had heard his weakness, heard him scream and beg and cry and yet somewhere, somehow, he was unbelievably touched that she would have been there for him. It showed that she cared enough about him to put up with those sounds and those feelings.
He knew that he hated to even hear the words 'Psy-Ops', let alone to actually go and listen as someone he cared about was being tortured. Max had been several times to Psy-Ops and yet she had stood outside his door listening to her nightmares all in the vague hope that it would comfort him.
It was at that moment that he realised how much Max cared about him, because no force on this earth could have made her go to Psy-ops unless she was half in love with him herself.
He moved forward with transgenic speed and before he could control himself he wrapped his arms around her tiny waist burying his head in her neck.
After a few startled seconds he felt Max's hands tentatively slip over his back and hold him against her.
"Sorry Max," he said, "It's not dumb. I'm glad you were there, I know how hard it must have been for you."
He pulled away and she looked into his sincere face.
"No big. I'm here, you're here. Safe as houses."
He frowned, trying to lighten the mood. "But we can break into houses."
"Good point," she frowned. "Huh, well there goes that saying."
He chuckled and rested back against the wall and they sat in companionable silence for a few minutes until Alec couldn't take it anymore.
"So, you aren't really dying of a broken heart, right?"
Max slapped him upsides the head with her pillow.
----
Logan stared at the youngsters that surrounded him in the small apartment. There were nine of them, all lounging over the furniture in casual stances that seemed somehow wrong to him. If they hadn't all been dressed like they belonged to a gang he would have said that they were movie stars. But outside of biker movies, he wasn't aware of any movie stars that wore biker boots, denim jeans and leather jackets.
And yet, despite their movie-star good looks, there was something about them, some edge that made him feel uneasy.
The girl who had spoken stood up and walked over to him holding out her hand. He had to look up high to her, showing her to be at least 5'8. Her dark skin cast her face in shadow and as she moved her waist length plait slapped against her back.
"My name is Tinga. I heard that you could help us."
A tall blonde man on the sofa snorted; his frame tense as he glared at Logan and Logan bristled at the slight.
"I hope so, ma'am," Logan replied courteously.
"We caught your cable hack... I mean Eyes Only's cable hack." The blonde grinned nastily, making sure that Logan knew his slip was intentional.
Logan started at the implied statement, okay so they knew he was Eyes Only. That was… unexpected.
His cover had always been meticulous and no one had seen through it before. He swallowed and decided that it was probably best to start his plausible deniability.
"I have no idea what you are talking about," his baffled tone was worthy of an Oscar.
But it obviously wasn't as convincing as he had hoped as the blonde rolled his eyes.
"Please."
"Zack!" A redheaded girl in the corner growled at him. "Chill."
"We don't have the time for this!" The one called Zack growled back at her.
"Excuse our brother. He has a few issues with Eyes Only," Tinga explained.
Brother? Logan looked around at them in surprise, there was no way that all of these people were related. The leggy redhead with large smouldering eyes was in way related to the small wiry dark haired boy with Hispanic undertones. The dark blonde with the dangerous aura playing with the knife wasn't a sibling to the African looking woman sitting ramrod straight in one corner and there was no familial resemblance between the elfin blonde tucked in one chair and the burly, sun tanned man sprawled on the floor.
Unless they were a religious cult, there was no way that Zack truly was a brother or Tinga.
"Why's that?" Logan asked not liking the feral way that Zack stared at him, as if seeing his weaknesses and contemplating how to prey on them.
"Well, actually all of us have issues with you, but we're too mature to snarl," the Hispanic dark haired, serious-eyed boy joked.
Logan started to feel like he had stepped unknowingly into the Lion's den and that made his response harsher than his usual dulcet tones allowed.
"I don't know you and as far as I know Eyes Only hasn't done anything to you. We don't cover gang warfare."
"We? This guy has identity issues," the serious-eyed boy stated.
"Krit," snapped the ice blonde in one corner.
"C'mon, Syl. We all know he's Eyes Only," he whined as she glared at him.
Logan had two more names to add to his database and search when he got back. Zack, Tinga, Syl and Krit-- there was something that taunted the edges of his mind at those names and he was determined to find out what it was.
"I'll be leaving now," Logan pushed the wheel chair back. He had grown increasingly uncomfortable with them, especially the dark blonde on the sofa who's very being cried out danger. Logan just wanted out.
"I'm afraid not, Mr. Cale. We don't want to hurt you, but we will if we have to," Tinga said apologetically.
"Ok, can we all take a chill pill?" The redhead took out a cigarette and lit up much to the annoyance of the man sitting next to her.
"Mr. Cale, we know you are Eyes Only, no point in denying it, and you will help us, no use in denying that either. You owe us," she said with a grin, tapping her cigarette between her long fingers.
"How do you figure that?" He quietly reached his hand down to where he had hidden his gun within the spokes of his chair. None of them had made any threatening moves towards him but he had seen too many strange things in his time as Eyes Only to discount the danger that he might be in.
"Name Seth ringing any bells?" Zack spat out and Logan's hand froze.
Seth? Seth as in transgenic Seth. The surly man that had aided him on many missions. They had formed an uneasy alliance after Logan had found him trawling the streets, looking for fights. Logan had Seth go on missions for him, Seth agreed in return for Logan's help getting some papers to leave the country and also in finding his brother Zack.
Zack?
Oh shit!
"What?" He did a double take, too surprised to deny association with the man. "You're that Zack?!"
"Yeah. You got my little brother killed. We all have issues with you. But right now we have the chance to save another of our family so we put aside the fact that we all want to kill you and you help us and maybe save your own skin in the meantime, okay?"
Logan swallowed. So these were Seth's brothers and sisters. Seth had been a fireball of teen angst and they had rubbed each other up the wrong way from the first time they had met, when Seth had been picking Logan's pocket. Instead of handing the man over to the sector police, Logan had invited the man back to his apartment to talk about his skills and maybe entice Seth into doing some of the same work for him. That had all fled when he had seen the barcode on Seth's nape. Eyes Only had been looking into the Manticore project for years and the idea that one of the infamous escapees of the top secret project was sitting in his living room was more than Logan could believe. An uneasy truce had been started when Logan tempted the man into doing some jobs for him. Seth just wanted the cash and his family and Logan had finally come through on the man's papers.
On his last mission Logan had sent him up against some drug lords and mafia types not letting Seth know that Manticore was right on his tail. If the boy had known that Manticore was even in the same state he would have fled in heartbeat and dropped Logan's mission. The last he had heard was that Seth had plummeted to his death on the top of the Space Needle. He lived with the guilt that he had wiped out that young life… no matter how annoying Seth had actually been.
If these kids were half as efficient as Seth was he would have been dead already if they wanted him to be. But the fact was they were willing to give him a chance and not kill him. It made him relieved as well as nervous.
"What do you need?"
The sandy haired guy sitting on the sofa, who looked more dangerous than all of them put together, finally spoke; his eyes gleaming as he smiled.
"Did Seth tell you about Manticore by any chance?"
"Yeah government facility. Like boot camp without the charm," Logan answered deliberately vague.
"As if," The redhead snorted indelicately.
"Jondy, please dump the cigarette," the man next to her asked. "I'm dying here."
"Oh please, Ash. Like your genetically enhanced lungs are gonna suffer," Jondy sassed.
"You might be used to smoke and smog in Frisco but where I live I like clean air!" Ash grimaced as smoke curled towards him.
"Shucks, you're breaking my heart, nature-boy."
"Am I gonna have to give you two a time out?"
Jondy and Ash looked at Tinga who looked embarrassed at her outburst.
"Sorry. Mom mode."
The other blonde who hadn't spoken yet grinned at her in an easy-going manner.
"Isn't it about time you called Chase anyway."
Tinga's eyes gleamed. "I need a secure line, Zane."
He threw her his cell phone. "Make it quick."
She squealed her thanks in a way that most unbecoming of a mother and left the room.
Jondy stubbed out her cigarette and popped some gum in her mouth, quickly snapping it as she glanced daringly at Ash.
He gave a patently fake smile. "Thanks, the popping is so much better than the poisoning."
"I live to serve," she said.
Logan stared bemused at the family bonding. It was surreal that these genetically enhanced soldiers sounded much like his own family at Christmas time… without the insincerity.
"So what about Manticore?" he drew the attention back to himself.
"We want to break in and get one of our own out."
Logan frowned, "One of your own? If my sources are correct, you all left in 2009?"
"We missed one," Zane said hesitantly.
"I'm not sure how I can help. I mean it's not like they'd just let me walk in and out," Logan said.
"Or roll," the scary one gestured to his chair with a smirk and Logan fought the urge to yell at the man.
"You know, it's bad manners to bring up another's disability."
"It's bad manners to send my brother to his death. Deal with it." His grin held no humour.
Logan knew he wasn't going to win.
"Ben, please." Syl leaned forward and caught his attention. The scary one-- Ben-- nodded and sat back, his eyes never leaving Logan reminding him of a panther in the jungle watching its prey hungrily.
"We're fed up of Manticore being on our tail. I for one am done hiding and running," Jondy said assertively, her attitude standing out a mile.
"We want to take the whole place down and what better way than exposure?" Syl added, her voice lilting in the air with indifference and a command that made Logan feel like saluting.
"You, Mr. Cale are about to make the Eyes Only broadcast of a lifetime."
----
Max stretched her arms over her head and peered at Alec who was trying not to look too fascinated with the flat expanse of soft skin that had shown when she had lifted her arms above her head.
"So what was so urgent that you made your way over here this late at night, shouldn't you be getting your beauty sleep?"
Alec scoffed, "I hardly need it."
Max smirked and sat back, one eyebrow raised as she waited for his response.
Alec swallowed. "Truth Max, I was worried about us."
"Us?"
Alec nodded. "It's important for C.O.s to be able to have implicit trust in each other to complete their missions and rely on each other."
"Ah," Max nodded in understanding, "and you're worried that after what happened, we don't have that."
"Do we?"
Max sighed. "A few weeks ago, if you'd asked me who the person I trusted most in the world was, I would have said you without a doubt. I still trust you with my life Alec, but…" she trailed off.
"Not with your heart." Off her look he amended, "Uh…I mean emotions." He raked a hand through his hair. "I have to admit that I don't understand the whole gun thing, and why that destroyed your trust in me."
Max tensed and he turned to face her, taking her hand in his.
"Max, I want to understand it. You mean so much to me and the idea that something I've done is still hurting you is… inexcusable. I more than want you to trust me, I need you to."
Max rubbed her arms as if cold and in truth she was. Cold from the memories of what had happened to her, talking about it was one of the last things that she wanted to do, but that intense look in his eyes made her sigh again, rubbing her neck before fixing him with a look.
"This isn't easy, Alec." She held up a hand before he could speak. "I guess the first time was when Lydecker shot Eva. That was the first time I had ever seen someone close to me get shot, shot down like she meant nothing, like she hadn't been protecting me. I still remember the gun skidding out of her hand at my feet. That was the first time that my world turned on its head. That gun was the catalyst for our escape, the first time that I realised fully that, to Manticore we were nothing but toys and tools." She drummed her fingers on the bed as she collected her thoughts and Alec watched as the emotions passed over her face. Anger, sorrow, regret and pain- so much pain.
"That realisation-- that we were nothing-- rocked my world, made my existence unstable and for the first time since I was born I felt… alone, hurt. Then we escaped into the woods surrounding the facility, I could hear the dogs baying for our blood, then the shots ringing out, screams from my brothers and sisters, and then I fell through the ice."
Max shuddered, remembering the cold, the pain, the feeling of ice in her lungs as she fought for breath, the certainty that she was going to die.
Not going there, she decided. "Then I saw Lydecker and he shot me too. I can still feel the bullet enter me. That was my last night of normalcy. Every day from then on for six years was pure torture, and I don't just mean Psy-Ops. Some of the things that those kids put me through made Psy-Ops seem like a holiday."
As he listened to her and felt her hand in his, Alec wished he had taken time to torture and kill Bulli when he had the chance.
Max continued, "The second gun was a catalyst for turning my world into hell. Lydecker had been the only one that we implicitly trusted, he was our…father? Judge, juror and now executioner. Funny how fast one man can fall from grace," she mused. "I trusted him to take care of me and he betrayed that trust."
Alec was beginning to understand and felt more like a fool than ever before.
"My life was changed by those two bullets and I vowed that guns would never blindside me again and they didn't… until Seth. The night we sat on the roof and watched the fire fight on the Space needle and I didn't even know that my brother was being killed, shot. More bullets taking away what I so desperately wanted to have back, even for a second."
Alec closed his eyes. "Then me."
Max smiled softly, tears in her eyes. "I trusted you more than I have ever trusted anyone before in my life, even more than Zack, even more than Lydecker. And there you were, the one person I thought would always protect me and lo- take care of me was about to take away my safety and put me back into hell and uncertainty."
"God, Max." Alec hauled her into his arms, shuddering hard at her words.
"Why Alec?" Max tried to blink back tears when all she wanted to do was cry. She clenched her fists in his shirt feeling the soft material beneath her palms.
"You were going to leave me, Max," Alec tried to explain. "I was never a very outgoing person; I wasn't a 'people' type of guy, until you showed up in my life. It was like, everything was in black and white and I was just going through the motions. Then you kicked me across the room and it was like seeing colour for the first time." Alec ran his hands through Max's hair, loving the silky texture under his fingers. "You made me come into life, you made me, Max. When I saw you take his hand and turn to leave all I could see was that I was losing you." The memory still hurt and he clutched her tighter. "Losing the one thing that made life worth living in this hellhole. All I wanted was to stop that, protect my family, keep you safe and with me where I could make sure that you were okay. I don't even really remember pulling the gun."
Max had stilled. "You wanted me safe?"
"Of course," he decided on honesty. "Don't you know that you're the most important person in my life?"
Max pulled away and blinked. "I am?"
Alec chuckled at the bewilderment in her voice. "These past weeks have been hell."
"Oh, Alec." Max ran her hands over his chest and shoulders pulling him in.
For wild moment Alec thought that she was going to kiss him and his heart sped up and he felt it thud painfully in his chest but she rested her cheek against his chest and curled up in his lap.
Alec was more than willing to just hold her; he had missed her so much and was so eager to get back to where they had been. But there was something that he had to know.
"Why were you going to go with him Max?"
Max played with his shirt for a moment. "I know that you guys wouldn't really understand, you're still with your unit, at least some of them but me and the '09ers were still family. In my mind they were perfect, I clung to memories of them while I was going through hell and they were always there for me, at least in my head. When Bulli would hit me, Zack was there telling me to get off the floor and hit back. When Simper would put barbed wire on my bed, Ben was there making shadow puppets on the wall while I got it out, helping me to stay awake. When Airy shut me in the utility room, Syl was there making me laugh and when Dredge held me under the water in the tank, Seth was there showing me how to breathe."
Max laughed even as tears dripped down her face. "The link between me and them never broke. I guess I idolised them. Ben especially, we were always so close. When he said that he needed me, it was like seeing my little brother in pain and crying for me. I couldn't turn my back on him."
She looked up at him begging for him to understand.
"Little brother?"
Max smiled. "I know you're older, that he's older but I wanted so badly to protect him."
"You have, Maxie," Alec protested, "by keeping Manticore away from him he has your protection."
"Thanks to you," she said softly.
Alec nodded. "But you have to see that how you felt about him, we feel about you," his tone dropped as he added. "Did you even think about us?"
"Of course, I'm not totally heartless Alec. But you guys don't need me like he does- did. Special Ops are trained to be perfect, you don't need me."
"Beg to differ," Alec stated firmly.
Max frowned. "Hmm?"
"Haven't you seen how we fall apart when we're not together, when you're not with us? Carrot's breakdown, Drew's angst fest and even Tara- can't you see that they need the both of us. We're in this together, Max. You and me. A … couple if you will."
Max paused. "Couple?"
Alec swallowed and tried to make light of it.
"Couple of loonies."
Max laughed. "I guess that's right anyway! I never thought of it like that. But I was blown away at seeing him and all."
"I get that, Maxie," Alec admitted, "I understand now, thanks for sharing it with me."
Max smiled against his shirt. "Hey we're friends, right?"
"Right. So you've forgiven me then?" he teased with an undercurrent of real nerves.
"Yes." Max's firm statement made his heart relax, until a thought occurred.
"Trust me?" He waited with bated breath for her next words.
"Ye-s. I think I do, still."
Alec pulled her closer, his heart relieved and his emotions high. The words that he so desperately wanted to say to her were just waiting on his lips. But he wouldn't tell her, not just yet. She wasn't ready.
It was a while later before either of them spoke again, content as they were to lay there in each others arms, Max breathing in Alec's scent and Alec combing his hand through her hair.
Max was the first to break the silence.
"Alec?"
"Yeah, Maxie?"
Max yawned. "Did you go see B.J.?"
Alec remembered the visit he had made to the man before coming to see Max. "Yeah."
"What's wrong with him?"
"Short version: back in Atlanta, Anna went into heat on a mission. B.J. had sex with her and then tried to make her his mate. She, brutally, turned him down and ridiculed the poor guy in front of everyone. It broke him."
"Anna's a bitch," Max yawned again and snuggled into his chest.
Alec chuckled, rubbing his nose into her hair. "In her defence she was probably embarrassed at the way he went about it, the guy came on a little too strong."
"Hmm," Max sounded sleepy, "I never understood the whole mating thing. Tara mentioned it while we were away, but I never got it."
Alec bit his lip. It wasn't until after their fight that he had realised he had called her his mate. He'd wondered if she had picked up on it at all, and if she did if she understood the significance of what he had said.
Obviously not.
"Uh well, we first found out about it back when the first of the girls went into heat," he recalled with fondness that day. "The scientists wanted to know what other animalistic traits we unexpectedly had and so did tests. Not like Psy-Ops but behavioural tests with the older generation Xs. They found that there was a high statistic of…" he tried to find a way to put it, "um, pairings I guess."
"Pairings?" Max said softly.
"Like animals, a mate is a partner that they chose to procreate with." That sounded too cold and clinical. "The facts were that when two Xs decided to mate it was because they had the most in common, like Tara and Carrot being most militaristic out of all of us. Actually, from what the Trainers and scientists found out it was mostly subconscious, certain pheromones reacting best with each other. Anyway mates mean that they'll stay together, like the ordinaries idea of marriage." Alec struggled to explain what they had found out, it was like describing red to a blind person, you had to experience it for yourself, and he hadn't, at least not yet. "What they also found out was that there was a high degree of possessiveness between mates. A… mark is left on that one so that no one else touches that mate, they can sense things about each other, know when they are in danger, that kind of thing."
"Hmm."
"Yeah, they also hate being apart, hence Carrot's little breakdown. He must have sensed Tara's unease and that drove him to attack the Trainer. A mate is…" he paused wondering if this was the best time for this. "A mate is someone you cherish and love. The bonds of mates are tight and last for pretty much forever. You're tied to that person but you don't care because you love them. I-Is that something that you could see yourself doing, Max?"
He held his breath.
Nothing.
"Max?" Alec looked down to see her upturned lips inches away from his and her eyes firmly closed, her breathing soft and deep and even.
Max was asleep.
Alec chuckled to himself as he lifted her and laid her on the bed, pulling the cover over her sleeping form.
"Did anyone ever tell you that you had the worst timing ever, Princess?" he whispered as he leant down to kiss her forehead, "Shark DNA, my ass."
He stroked her hair once more and then headed for the door, pausing and glancing over his shoulder to give her one last look.
"Night, Max."
Max shifted slightly in her sleep and a small smile curved her lips as the door shut quietly. A whisper escaped her in a gentle exhalation of breath.
"Alec."
Then all was quiet.
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We find out more in depth on BJ and Anna in Moving Alongside which should be posted on Friday!
see next chapter for review notes! 99 reviews i can't believe it! did i mention that i love you guys?