Author's note: I've started chunking sections together per many people's request. Thank you for your feedback!

Hey there, Big Fella," Logan greeted Joshua warmly as the towering dog-man opened the door to his room.

"Hey back." Joshua seemed amused. "New friend?"

Logan looked back to the girl standing behind him placidly with a black hood over her head. "Sorta. Listen, do you know where Max is? No-one's seen her all day and I have something important to tell her." Logan had been pulling his companion through Terminal City searching for Max for the last half hour without luck.

Joshua pushed the door open wider, revealing Max. She had been standing close by, listening to the exchange. She looked both guilty and embarrassed to be caught. Joshua was evidently not supposed to reveal her presence.

"Hey, stranger," Logan smiled crookedly, and his belly did gymnastics at the mere sight of her so close and emotionally unguarded.

"Hey." Her reply was so soft he almost didn't hear it.

"We've got a bit of a situation here," he went on, confused and perplexed by Max's mixed signals. "I need a blood transfusion for her," he said, shoving Asha forward and unveiling her face. "She'll be staying a while, I think."

Asha recoiled upon seeing Joshua, burying her face in Logan's chest. Logan glanced at Max, only to find that her face was an unreadable mix of emotions. Envy, maybe, and anger.

"Why?" Max was all business now. She didn't appreciate Logan being here at this particular time, and she sure as hell didn't appreciate him bringing Asha, or the way Asha was clinging to him.

Logan recognized Max's flat, military tone, and urged Asha to tell her everything she had told him at their meeting earlier with a gentle push. "Max, I don't know how to tell you this, but I'm a member of the Conclave."

Even Logan, who had seen X-5s fight many times, couldn't quite believe that Max's fist moved that fast, but he managed to catch Asha before she fell too far. His blonde friend was passed out cold, and probably would be for a while. Joshua growled, canines bared.

"Does she work with him?" Joshua asked.

"Take her to get blood. We'll talk when she's awake."

"Max, I only just found out," Logan replied to her simmering brown eyes.

Max's reply was interrupted by Mole running into the room. "We've got a situation, boss."

"Not now," she snapped. There were too many "situations" right now.

"Yes now," Mole matched her annoyed tone. "We found Lydecker."

"Lydecker's alive? Here?" Logan asked. He had thought for sure the man was dead, killed by the Conclave to cover up their existence. Two people associated with Ames White and his Familiars turn up in Terminal City in one day? Logan was starting to feel uneasy. One look at Max told him that she was, too. And she had no idea how to handle either captive.

"Josh, take Asha to the med bay. I'll deal with her when she wakes up. Mole, take me to him."

Joshua looked less than happy to obey, and who could blame him? Ames White had successfully taken away the one shred of proof he had that he could someday live with upstairs people when he killed Annie. The Conclave was trying to kill him and his friends. And now his best friend wanted him to help one of them?

"Come on, Big Fella. Give me a hand." Logan tried to smooth the situation over by appealing to Joshua's normal helping nature. Joshua still seemed grumpy, but at least Max's orders were being followed, which ought to help dislodge whatever genetically enhanced bug she had stuck up her ass. Logan understood that she was under a lot of stress, but she seemed to be "off" somehow. More emotional than normal, especially now when she should be in super-soldier mode. If she wasn't careful, she would get herself killed. It only took one mistake these days.

Logan Cale would never understand women.

Max had hit a lot of people today, yet beating the stuffing out of Lydecker had given her no satisfaction. The anger that she had been relying on to get her through the next day was consuming itself. There were too many conflicting feelings floating around in her mind, and they were drowning her common sense quickly. When she told Logan to go home, her last shred of common sense left with him, and she all she had was a tangle of emotions and the inability to consider her next move.

Either Asha or Lydecker were lying, and she really didn't trust either of them.

Max was getting a headache from trying so hard to focus on the matters at hand. Her body was electrified, charged, and brimming with energy. She felt like running or fighting until she collapsed. Despite her vigor, she was mentally exhausted from warring with biological urges. Her brain was crashing.

She knocked on Alec's door, and he answered, wearing only his well-worn blue jeans. As her eyes drank in the twin shadows made by the joining of his hip bones and Manticore-issued abs, she knew she would not leave the room. Could not leave the room.

Alec made a face. "Max?" he asked, annoyed that she hadn't said anything yet, and if anything, seemed to be checking him out. She brushed by him, letting herself into the room, and shut the door by leaning back on it.

"I'm in heat." Her voice was low and smooth. Alec recognized the sounds of arousal.

"Uh-uh," Alec backed away from her, and she followed him, stalking him like he was her prey. "Bad idea, Maxie."

"Shut up." She pounced on him then, containing him long enough to kiss him ferverently. Alec desperately wished it didn't feel so good, wished he didn't miss sex so much. Feeling the last of his resolve start to slip away, he hit her, hard, a right hook across her face.

She looked hurt, emotionally wounded, not physically. If anything, the pain just increased her desire. She dabbed at the corner of her mouth, and the next time she pounced, Alec tasted her blood, and found he liked the metallic sweetness. His hands seemed to tear off her shirt by themselves, not waiting for him to make up his mind, though in retrospect he was fairly sure his brain would have been four-square against the idea...if it had been working.

Her hands responded by reaching for his pants.

Alec hoisted her up so that she sat on his hips, legs wrapped around his waist. He could feel her heat burning into his belly button, and his own heat responding, as he walked her to his mattress. He liked the feel of her this close and powerful, so he gave in to her rhythm, her madness. Even as they lost themselves in each other, in the release of sex, both wished they were sharing the moment with someone else.