Genre: Drama / Angst / Implied Romance
Pairing: M/A
Disclaimer: I don't own Dark Angel , it owns me. ;)
Summary: How important are memories? Max and Alec face a new challenge in their changing relationship. Can an unfortunate accident bring them closer together?
Lethe: Chapter 3
It was lunch time when Max's pager went off and Logan's number flashed up urgently at her. It couldn't be a good sign she had only left Alec a few hours ago and she was just beginning to relax. She kept wondering whether taking him to Logan's was such a good idea but he couldn't have come here. Having to explain somehow to everyone how he lost his memory, whilst warding off Normal, and then trying to help Alec, just would have been too much for her and she was sure it would have been too much for him. She felt responsible for his condition and she had been pretty devoted to putting her time into his recovery. On a selfish level it was helping her to reassess her relationship with him, as she helped him recognise aspects of himself she began to recognise his layers. She found it ironically logical that a being with enhanced learning and memorising capabilities, who could become a concert pianist over night could loose everything in the same space of time. If he had snapped it wouldn't have been for the first time. When he first came to he had panicked did some serious damage to the examination room and some innocent transgenics who tried to subdue him. He had no one to trust in a place he didn't recognise. His basic instincts were to fight in order to survive. But beyond that there was also the little boy, who never had the chance to grow up who didn't want to be alone anymore. Just because he decided to play hero, putting himself in danger to remover her from it, and she wasn't able to stop him. She took a deep breath and walked over to the pay-phone praying for good news. It rang only once, not a good sign, almost as bad as no one answering at all.
"It's me, what's up?"
"Max it's Alec he's gone crazy!" In the background Max could hear smashing, crunching and growls. It was hard to specify what it was as it appeared Logan was moving away from the sounds of destruction.
"What do you mean 'crazy'?"
"We were just talking and he got all worked up, like he there were too many questions he didn't have answers for He smashed his fist through the window and that was it, he just lost it." Max's eyes widened.
"Is he hurting himself? Is he hurting you?"
"I'm fine. He seems to have rediscovered his superhuman strength ... I think you need to get down here ... Now Max."
"I'm on my way." She hung up and dodged Normal as she raced to the exit. Hoping onto her Ninja she gunned the engine and sped off toward Foggle Towers, hoping she wasn't too late and Alec had already imploded.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The journey up Logan's apartment block was a blur all that registered was the large wooden door at the top. She kicked it through having no patience to pick the lock. The destruction that met her on the other side caught her off guard, the apartment had been practically ripped to shreds. She quickly recovered and called out across the room, Logan called back drawing her to the smashed window she found him staring out of. He didn't look any worse for ware which was a good start.
"Where's Alec?" Max asked. Logan pointed at a lone figure that stood on the roof top below them.
"I don't know what happened ... But I think he's remembering."
Her face creased with concern. It was bad enough not knowing anything but what if he was being swamped with memories, painful memories of imprisonment, torture and loss. Max pressed her hand to the window as she watched him just stand there on the edge of the roof ledge. Manticore for her held few good or pleasant memories and she had escaped, she could only imagine what another ten years could do to a mind. She began to wonder if maybe it would be better that he didn't remember.
"He's been standing there for quite some time, maybe you should ..." Logan suggested
"Yeah." Max replied distractedly. She made her resolve as she climbed out of the window and swooped down on to the roof below, she would face him, he might not be lost just yet.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
A smirk crept across his lips as he heard her drop down and cautiously approach but he wiped it away before he turned to her. Neither spoke for a moment both engaged in an intense stare down.
"Alec?" Max ventured, stepping closer only to cause Alec to drop into a fighting stance "Are you alright?"
"Take me down." He demanded
"I'm not going to fight you."
"Take me down!" He repeated as he started to circle his target.
"Please Alec, don't do this." She pleaded her mind flashing back to the fateful day when she fought Ben in the forest. Alec didn't back down, his mind set. It was the only way to show her.
"I said Take. Me. Down!" He shouted slowly punctuating his words then taking a swing at her. She backed out of harms-way and shook her head, begging him with her eyes not to follow through. "Take me down or I'll take you down." He growled dangerously, slashing at her with one hand then kicking her square in the chest as she moved to dodge it. Max stumbled back a step. Slowly her fists rose and she dropped her centre of gravity, taking up her own attack stance, pinning him with her enraged glare.
"Fine let's do this." Alec grinned. Logan watched confused as the two transgenics began to circle each other before launching into a fast and furious battle. He'd watched Max fight Alec before, she somehow always seemed to have the upper-hand, but now she appeared more at Alec's mercy. They were evenly matched but Alec had the clear advantage here, and he wasn't holding back. Alec's advantage allowed him to mould the fight dealing out very specific moves. Max found something strangely familiar about them. Flashes of her past, of Manticore randomly appeared in her mind but she couldn't quite place it. The familiar set of moves Alec delivered in turn led her and her curiosity to reciprocate by delivering moves as appropriate, as she tried to remember when she had fought this way before. Alec allowed himself a devious smile as they continued to duel, she was remembering. Alec wouldn't let her stray from the routine his strength and ability to yield it had fully returned and he was determined to see this through.
Just as it seemed the tables might be turning the fight ended. Max jabbed at Alec in the face with a quick right-left combo. Alec stumbled a step, his head following the punch through, and doing nothing to stop it. He cracked his neck back into position and dropped his stance. Max watched him wearily, confused by the fiery sparkle in his eyes.
"It was you." he stated softly as he slowly approached her, never breaking eye contact so that he wouldn't miss the moment of recognition when it came. Max was still confused. He removed a glove he had pulled over one of his hands to reveal it to be still bloody and ridden with glass shards. She didn't understand at first but the moment she took hold of his hand it all became clear. A memory flickered into clarity around her and she was no longer on the rooftops of Seattle but back at Manticore, her hair a military standard buzz-cut, holding the hand of a boy about her age who had just smashed it through a window. He smiled through the pain. She carefully pulled out a large shard feeling him wince as she did so. Their moment broke as Lydecker entered giving them both a disapproving look. While her companion was dragged away by an unnamed officer, Lydecker addressed her.
"452, fall in, eye's front! Your return to barracks has now been suspended (sigh) follow me."
Max almost didn't register his words still watching with rapt fascination the boy being dragged away from her. He looked back at her until she was gone from sight.
Max returned to the present and looked up at Alec searchingly.
"That day in the gym. It was you. How could I have forgotten?"
"They made us forget, gave them a little fright. I think they hadn't thought the old gym was an easy out route. That's why they spent ages rebuilding it." Max shook her head in disbelief.
"I always wondered what was wrong with the old gym, the new one wasn't so different, but now..." She smiled up at Alec knowingly "So you were trouble from the start, huh." Alec smirked and scratched the back of his head. Looking back down at their still joined hands the events of that day replayed in their minds.
Max sat in the empty gym after having completed manticore's mandatory annual individual testing scheme and was eager to get back to her unit. But Lydecker who had always put in a little extra when it came to her was apparently unsatisfied. So she waited there alone looking at the tall textured windows, the shiny exercise bars and the mat lined floor.
A young 494 had been on his way to the infirmary for a medical check-up before deployment. He loathed it. Being poked, prodded, and probed for a few hours was worth delaying as long as possible, and right now he was desperate. As if answering his plea he stopped outside the gym seeing a soldier about his age standing alone inside. He watched a moment intrigued, then being in no particular hurry to get on, he went inside. To his surprise the girl smiled at him as if she knew him.
Max was relieved to see her brother enter the room, she had in her opinion spent far too long away from her brothers and sisters. But her smile faltered as he continued to stare blankly back at her, checking her over as you would a complete stranger or adversary. A grin spread across his lips which seemed to say show-me -what-you-got. Without a word he made the challenge and took up a fighting stance. Max returned his grin with her own speculative smile narrowing her eyes calculatingly at her opponent. They fought, Alec dominating throughout with Max coming back at the end. Max delivered a quick right-left combo which he avoided giving her the opportunity to kick his legs out form under him and he fell back on to the mat. Down but not out Alec made a move to reciprocate the gesture but Max straddled his hips to stop him. Alec resorted to a trick not on the Manticore curriculum and tickled her. The totally unexpected move caused Max to jump away in a squeal of unsurpressed laughter. Soon a lively, high speed chace about the gym ensued, the two of them laughing and dodging about trying to tickle or avoid being tickled. They remembered feeling more alive than they had ever been during training or out on manoeuvres. Alec made a lunge at Max who only just dodged out of the way leaving him unable to stop his hand from smashing through the window behind her. It all stopped. Slowly Alec pulled his hand back through, blood running down his arm and dropping on to the floor. Alec could feel the cool outside air caress his face and the warmth of the last rays of sunshine on his flesh through the whole in the glass. Jagged shards were embedded in his wound and some of his blood and flesh was left behind where the glass had claimed it. He turned to Max as she approached him, concern written across her face. He held out his hand to her smiling through the pain...
As the moment faded back to the present Max laughed, strangely delighted to be back in possession of that particular memory. Alec lightly stroked the fingers of Max's hand with his thumb.
"All we do is fight; at Manticore, at Logans, in the ring..."
"Do you remember ... everything?"
"I remember you." He whispered softly. Suddenly feeling as if he may have overstepped an invisible line he tried to lighten the atmosphere that now crackled with tension. "You could say I got sense knocked into me." Max cracked into a big smile and hugged him, which he hadn't expected.
"It's good to have you back." She laughed through the lump in her throat choking her words. Alec closed his eyes, wrapping himself around her trying to contain that warm feeling inside, and secretly smelling her hair.
"Hey!!" Logan's agitated shout broke the spell and they looked up at him noting his clear discomfort with their increasing closeness. Alec sighed and pointed upwards offering Max his arm.
"Shall we?"
"We shall, we've got to get you cleaned up."
A/N: See Max and Alec fighting has it's benefits. I haven't Logan bashed really but there's plenty of time for that, I wanted to focus on Alec's state of mind first. So how am I doing? Shall I leave it there or do we want more? Let me know. xxx
