What Was There All Along
Disclaimer: I own nothing except any OCs.
It was on an unremarkable day a few weeks after Max's break up with Logan that Alec noticed Max looking far from healthy, not that that was unusual, her morning sickness having been quite bad recently, but this was different. She didn't look nauseous, more like…grey, washed out, and slightly shaky as she exited the ladies bathroom in Jam Pony gingerly, as though the movement cost her a great deal of effort, not exactly her usual confident cat like swagger. Alec knew that he recognised the symptoms from somewhere, but where? He really needed to remember, he knew it was something important he just… and then it hit him, like the anvil on the head Max had threatened him with when he first took the job at Jam Pony, seizures…
That was what had Max looking so crappy right now, she must have been going through a rough patch right now, "A really rough patch!" he grimaced, looking at the black circles under Max's eyes in sympathy, she really shouldn't have been working like this…
All X5 got the seizures, it was part of the serotonin deficiency they all shared, the reason they needed to regularly take meds like tryptophan. Alec himself had never particularly had the seizures that bad, but he knew people who had, and back when the seizures had first manifested in the then 3-6 year old X5 Alec vividly remembered, Sol, one of the younger kids from his unit, being dragged off by the guards in the middle of the night, they never saw him again…
It was not one of his fonder childhood memories, and that was saying a lot considering how many of them there were to choose from. But he particularly remembered that feeling of helplessness that he had had then, perhaps for the first time in his young life. He had realised that he couldn't protect his unit from everything. He could cover for them in drills, watch over them when they were injured, stay up all night trying to make them laugh if they were sad but he couldn't stop them seizing, and God knew he had tried. When it first started happening he used to sit up all night watching over whoever was ill, he knew he'd get solitary if he was caught, but he didn't care, they were his unit, his pack, relying on him to protect them. He was their CO, he was supposed to protect them when things got bad. But he couldn't not that time, and Sol had paid the price, he couldn't even bear to think about what their lab techs had probably done to him when they tried to figure out what went wrong… The only thing that had kept him going, kept him sane was the certainty that even if he had failed Sol, the rest of his unit still needed him, were still relying on him to save them. It was the only reason that he didn't break down and try and kill the guards who came for Sol, he couldn't let the others down, little CeCe, Biggs and Maiya… But no, he couldn't think about Maiya, about any of them, he had made sure they were safe by disabling that signal, there was no more he could do for them, except pray they survived…
Pulling himself out of memories that he had spent the better part of 14 years trying to forget, and stopping himself from worrying about things he had no control over Alec once again focused on Max. He couldn't bear the thought of her being sick, especially not with the seizures. Was she crazy coming into work like this? She needed rest!
Alec longed to rush over to Max, sweep her up into his arms, and take care of her. She needed someone to force her into doing something sensible, but this was Max he was talking about, when did she ever listen to anyone? There was absolutely no way she was gonna listen to him, even if they had been getting closer lately, but he had to try…
XXX
Max was feeling awful. She knew she looked like crap this morning, but she just couldn't bring herself to care. She had been up most of the night with seizures and had literally had no sleep. Though she usually only needed a couple of hours of sleep a night, the seizures really took it out of her and Max felt absolutely exhausted, the last thing she needed was a long day delivering packages, but after her bombshell of several weeks ago, she was trying to stay under Normal's radar, which meant following the rules, for once, and not skipping work whenever she felt like it.
Max hadn't had any seizures since she had got out of Manticore again, chalking it up to whatever meds they had given her whilst back inside, and her own vigilance in taking her Tryptophan regularly, but the seizures last night had been severe, probably some of the worst she had ever had…
Max hated the seizures, they scared her, and if there was one thing Max hated, it was being afraid. Back at Manticore the seizures had always frightened her, even when she was little. They meant a complete loss of control of her body, she was helpless in the throws of a seizure, and though she knew back at Manticore that during one her unit would try to protect her, she also knew that they didn't always succeed, as the image of Jack's autopsy, observed by her and Ben in the shadows, indelibly burned into her memory attested. He had been the first in her unit to develop the seizures, the first pulled from his bed by guards in the middle of the night whilst they looked on in horror. That had been the first time that it had ever occurred to the then 4 year old Max that maybe Zack and Erica couldn't in fact protect her from everything, like an 'ordinary' child discovering that their parents didn't in fact know everything, it shattered her world, for months making her too afraid to sleep, in case the guards should come for her in the middle of the night too.
Max's seizures always seemed to precede something terrible, like the night they escaped… It had been her seizures that caused it, the others were afraid that the guards would take her away, so when they had come Zack had attacked them, knocking away a gun which Eva then picked up, causing Lydecker to shoot her, frightening the others into escape, and perhaps ultimately, causing Ben to loose it. All the truly terrible things in her life, seemed to be traced back to the seizures, loosing her unit, killing Ben, Eva's death, watching them cut Jack open, they were the precursors of bad things to come…
She was so out of it, lost in the past, that she didn't even register the tell tale tingle which she had come to realise meant Alec was approaching…
"Hey Max." greeted Alec jovially, "You're not looking so hot this morning." he stated seriously.
"Gee thanks Alec, you really know how to make a girl feel good about herself!" snapped Max, far to harshly given the circumstances, as she slammed closed her locker with a resounding 'bang', causing her, and Alec's sensitive ears to ring, painfully.
"Just looking out for you Max!" snapped back Alec equally harshly, before seeming to calm himself by taking a deep breath and continuing more softly, "You just don't look well, that's all." he finished sincerely, pinning her with a concerned hazel eyed stare, "Is it the seizures?" he questioned kindly.
"Yeah." admitted Max grudgingly, running a hand through her dishevelled hair, as she realised that he was just being a friend, and seeing if she was alright, hence she was probably out of line snapping at him before, though admittedly, she had said worse to him in the past, not that that was anything to be proud of!
"You shouldn't be in work then, take a day, rest for a while, I'll cover with Normal." he began, kindly.
"Thanks but no thanks." sneered Max nastily, "I don't need you coddling me Alec I'll be just fine." finished Max, bending down to grab her bag so that she could leave. She knew that she over stepped the mark with what she'd said to him, but some things were too deeply ingrained to prevent, you never showed weakness to someone who wasn't in your unit, if Manticore had taught her anything it was that. But then why was that niggling voice in her brain trying to convince her to let Alec help her, since when had she started to consider him as part of her unit?
She didn't however have time to ponder the mental acrobatics her brain was indulging in over Alec as she was suddenly hit with a blinding wave of weakness, turning her limbs to jelly as a white hot pain exploded in her head, she could literally feel her control slipping, as her limbs began to spasm causing her to drop her bag…
"NO!" she screamed inwardly, why was this happening? Why now in Jam Pony where anyone could walk by and see, in a place where she couldn't hide. She could feel herself falling, loosing control of her leg muscles as she started to seize, but she never hit the ground…
XXX
Alec had seen Max's strength and resolve wavering, and though she had essentially told him to 'fuck off' he knew that it would only be a matter of time before she crashed. He was right.
No sooner had Max stood after bending to retrieve her previously abandoned bag Alec saw the agony and fear flash across her eyes, he knew the signs well enough to know what would happen next, and lo and behold she dropped her bag, loosing control of her limbs and falling as her body began to convulse.
He never let her hit the floor. Moving so fast he practically blurred Alec grabbed Max's convulsing body, pulling her to his chest and holding her arms gently to stop her from flailing too obviously, as he sunk to the floor with her in his arms, fearing that at any moment another messenger might come across them. He knew he had to get her Tryptophan, and fast, but he didn't want to have to leave her convulsing on the floor…
It was at that point that OC rounded the corner and discovered them. At first she seemed about ready to launch herself into a tirade against Alec, misinterpreting what she was seeing, but then she seemed to realise what had happened and rushed forward to help.
"Damn boo," muttered Original Cindy, moving towards Max, as she crouched and brushed some hair out of her pale sweaty face, "I told her not to come into work today…" she muttered under her breath, clearly exasperated with the temperamental transgenic.
"Well that makes two of us." quipped Alec furiously, trying to mask his fear for Max and the baby with anger, feeling that of the two he was much more comfortable with anger. But then he registered what OC had actually said. "Why'd you tell her not to come into work today?" he questioned curiously.
"Cos, smartie pants Max was seizing all night last night and she looked like death warmed over this morning." she explained, impatiently tapping her foot, as she took in her friend's stricken and pasty face.
'All night', the words echoed in Alec's head ominously, this was so not good! The seizures may have been bad when they came, but you usually only got them a few times a year, generally few and far between. Alec could count on one hand the amount of times he had seen X5 have seizures on two consecutive days, and all of them had died… Shit!
OC seemingly registering the look of dawning horror on Alec's face began to panic herself, "Alec what's going on?" she questioned frantically, "And why all of a sudden do ya look like somebody died?"
"OC can you get the Tryptophan out of Max's bag?" he questioned, ignoring what she had just asked him and trying desperately to stay focused on the task at hand, helping Max.
"Sure suga." agreed OC, hurriedly doing as he asked, searching for the bottle of pills she knew that Max kept in her bag, "But when this is all over you betta tell me what that look was all about…" she ordered, her tone leaving no room for negotiation as she opened the bottle and poured six of the small white pills into Alec's waiting hand.
Alec then wasted no time in trying to coax Max into swallowing the pills, all the while praying that no one was about to walk in on this little scene, as Max weakly tried to swallow, a plaintive call of 'Alec' the only sound she made as she caught his eye, seeming to question his actions with her stare. "Well what does she expect me to do?" He thought angrily, "Stand by and do nothing?" She always seemed to expect the worst of him!
Catching OCs concerned eye again Alec continued to question her, "How many of those pills did Max take this morning?" he asked, trying to figure out why she was having so many seizures, had she not taken a high enough dose or something?
"Six like usual." stated Original Cindy with certainty, "Why do ya wanna know?" she questioned, confusion clear in her warm brown eyes.
"Just trying to figure out what's going on." admitted Alec honestly, looking down at Max, who had started thrashing more weakly in his arms, it looked like the Tryptophan was taking effect if the seizures were weakening but he couldn't figure out what was up, six pills should have been enough to have tied an X5 over for at least 24 hours, so why had she started seizing again? It didn't make sense, and it couldn't be an indication of anything good.
"This isn't good is it?" questioned OC, catching Alec's hazel eyed stare, before glancing down to look at the now slightly quieter Max.
"No its not." admitted Alec, looking down at the petite woman in his arms, she looked awful, not at all like her usual badass self. She looked weak, vulnerable, it was actually sort of frightening seeing her like that. But Alec had seen worse, a lot worse, so he tried not to react to it.
"I take it that many pills shoulda worked." deduced OC.
"Yeah it should have done," he admitted, "she shouldn't have had any seizures this morning." he sighed, "We need to get her checked out by a doctor." he finally conceded, figuring they might have some idea what was wrong with her. He fervently wished that Zan or Red his unit's medics were here, but they weren't and he'd have to make do with an 'ordinary' doctor, just great!
What's going to happen to Max and the baby? Tune in next week to find out!
Thanks for all the great reviews, I'm so honoured, Id' give you all cookies, but ya know, that would be a bit difficult, so just imagine I did 'kay?
Anyway, if the details of the escape or anything seem a bit off, its not that I'm ignorant or anything (though I could be that as well!) it's that I'm changing things to fit in with my plot.
Anyway enough talking, please review, it'll only take a second, and I'd really appreciate your opinions!
Thanks!
XXX