A/N: candygoddess: glad I could corrupt you! Like I've mentioned before, it's really encouraging to know that I've managed to turn someone on to something they'd never considered before. Thank you to everyone who gave me ideas, reviewed, or put up with my endless babbling. Aurora: thank you for the idea in your review of chapter nine. This chapter was going to be slightly different before I read that. Sorry it took so long, I got into Stargate:Atlantis, it was a terrible distraction.
White had tried to get the meeting held somewhere other than Terminal City, arguing that he shouldn't have to bring his people into transgenic home territory.
He didn't even try to use the biohazard as an excuse; he knew she was fully aware that the Familiars were immune.
Max won when she pointed out that he had called her, and while she didn't trust him even half as far as she could throw him, she was willing to go through with this.
He had choked down a few choice curses and conceded, so the meeting is set in one of the parking garages that surround Terminal City.
White enters first in his Agency-issue black Lincoln, four cars follow him in and he gets out.
Max has never seen him in anything other than a suit, but today he's wearing black jeans and running shoes and a polo shirt with the collar unbuttoned, flashing the tanned expanse of his throat under a leather jacket.
She wonders when he has time to tan, especially in Seattle, but that thought brings back the image of him shirtless, and then the taste of his mouth and the strength of his hands on her, and she cuts the thought off before she loses control completely.
He slams his car door and stands with his back to the approaching Familiars, his eyes finding her in the shadows.
"Let's do this, 452," he shouts in his broad voweled New York accent, "I don't like this anymore than you do, you know that."
"The name's Max," she snaps back at him as she steps out of the shadows.
His jaw tightens. "Let's do this, Max," he grits out between his teeth.
She glares back at him and raises a hand in a pre-agreed upon signal. Dix, Mole, and Fil step out beside her.
White looks at them, and then around them. "I'll just go ahead and assume that you've got this area covered with shooters."
Max gives him a very cold smile. "Like I said; I don't trust you."
He gives her an oddly thoughtful look as he turns to speak to the people he brought with him. "Feeling's mutual, Max."
Fil, Dix, and three of the five Familiars with White are the ones doing the talking. From what Max can hear standing on the sidelines, both sides are gaining a lot.
Good. It'd be nice to have some positive outcome from this little exercise in futility.
A call for her comes in over the radio, she holds down the transmitter, "Go for Max."
"It's Original Cindy," says Dalton, who has taken over CIC in Dix's absence, "She took a fall coming in and she looks pretty bad, I think the stuff around here has begun to affect her."
Max wavers, torn between protecting her people, and being with her best friend.
Finally she holds the transmitter down and says, "I'm coming in. Alec," she calls, turning to look into the shadows, "come take over."
He drops from a ceiling strut, swinging the rifle in his hands to hang on his shoulder. "Go ahead, Maxie," he says, "We'll handle it."
White watches her leave, but says nothing.
His silence worries her more than if he had spoken.
Original Cindy is adamant.
"Girl, please," she demands. "I'm fine. Go back, you know you're worried."
Max gives her a tight look, and keeps pacing.
Original Cindy sighs. "It ain't like I've never fallen off my bike before," she grumbles.
Max doesn't acknowledge her.
"Something wrong, boo?"
Still nothing.
"You're still all hung up on this White thing, aren't you?"
It isn't a question, and Max doesn't answer.
"It's aiight, girl. You know I've got your back in this."
Max stops pacing, and looks at her friend.
"What the hell is happening to me, OC?"
"What do you mean, sugar? What's up?"
Max sits down on the table next to her. "Nothing new," she admits. "I just"…she breaks off, and then finishes softly…"I feel awful, OC. I feel like, of all the bad things I've ever done, this ranks right up there with Ben, and Brin, and walking away from Logan. Am I crazy?"
"You're not crazy, girl." Original Cindy puts her arms around her friend. "You're just a little mixed up. Maybe you're starting over."
"Starting over?"
Original Cindy nods with her head still on Max's shoulder. "All the bad things you did, all the lies you told to protect you and yours, you're starting over fresh, making yourself a new woman."
Max snorts in laughter. "That's crazy."
Original Cindy gives her a serious look that goes oddly with her gentle smile.
"Just give it a shot, boo. Come correct with the man, straight up. You'll feel better, I promise."
She's uncertain. "You think so?"
"Well hell, sugar, if that don't work we're gonna havta get you some serious chocolate up here."
They laugh about that.
Original Cindy has never wanted Max to be happy more than she does now.
"I mean it, Max. Tell him the truth."
So she does.
She takes him outside Terminal City, into the no man's land between the gate and Seattle proper, and she tells him, straight up.
He stares at her, shocked, for an entire minute, during which she can't move, can't speak.
And then he shoots her.