This chapter was once again beta'd by the lovely Scarlet. Thanks again Scarlet.
Chapter Twenty
A Week later
They had all watched their numbers swell in bemusement over the last week, Max more than anyone. They now had three times the numbers they had a week ago. She and Kat had been employed full time just managing the influx. The logistics of finding space and supplies for them was proving to be a nightmare and they were now at the point of crisis.
"Where the hell is Tavis with those C rations? He said he'd be back by lunchtime, it's not like him to be late. He better not have got himself into shit," Kat added darkly.
"We are going to be in real trouble if he doesn't get those rations." Max glanced around their almost empty warehouse.
"He'll get them, I'm not worried about that. But he's supposed to be keeping a low profile, just steal the supplies and leave the Base unmolested. Discreet isn't exactly Tav's specialty. That's what I'm worried about," she added dryly.
"Who went with Tavis on the supply run, Todd?"
"Biggs, he'll keep him out of trouble. Nothing to worry about, Kat."
"Cece's heat must have finished," Kat smiled at Max. "Speak of the devil," she added, as they watched Tavis, accompanied by a scowling, limping, bleeding Biggs make their way over to them.
"Three trucks outside as ordered, ladies. Enough C's for 2 weeks. I'll go out this afternoon and get you some more basic stuff once I've sorted Biggs out," Tavis winked at them.
"I don't need fucking sorting out," Biggs snapped. I can't fucking believe you got me shot again. This is the first day out of Cece's heat and I've got a fucking bullet in my leg. Covering your reckless ass again you fucking little prick."
"There's nothing little about my prick. Speak for yourself, Biggs," Tavis smirked back.
"You were supposed to be discreet about this heist. Were you sprung Tavis?" Kat demanded curtly.
"Yeah, we had a bit of a problem, but I contained it and that's how Biggs got shot. But everything is sweet. We made it look like a run of the mill black market heist. It can't be tied to us. I'm just gonna go and report in now, but I'll be back soon. Don't go anywhere without me, Max," he winked. He jerked his head and raised his eyebrows at a slouching, bored Todd, who pulled himself upright and gave him a thumbs up signal.
Max couldn't repress her smile as she watched a still bickering Biggs and Tavis depart. "They remind me of my brothers," she said wistfully.
"Yeah, they're pretty close." Tav and Tanya were sort of the little brother and sister in our unit everyone looked out for them. You haven't met Tanya yet she and Ana had been sent to breed and got separated from us when Manticore burned. We couldn't find them and had to evac without them. We've been looking for them ever since. I think they're probably dead." Max heard the catch in her voice.
"They haven't been sighted since the escape, Alec has been messaging them for nearly a year and the guys have turned this city upside down looking for them. Tanya was younger than Tav and he saw it as his job to look out for her, and he took it pretty seriously. When we evac'd we had to carry him out unconscious, he wouldn't leave without her or Alec. That's one of the reasons Alec gave him the job of guarding you when he couldn't be around. It gave Tavis something to do other than obsessively looking for Tanya and Ana.
"You're all pretty close aren't you Kat?"
"Yeah, we are, we had to be or we wouldn't have survived." Manticore was hard, soulless, merciless slavery. My unit enabled me to endure it, they protected me and they made it bearable, they gave me a reason to want to survive. Without them many times over the years I would have just given up."
Max's seeing the haunted pain in Kats eyes remembered the same look in Alec's when he had told her it had got a whole lot worse as they got older.
"But we're free now, Max, and Alec will keep us that way. He will stop them killing us and we will have the lives we dreamed of having when we were children. Won't we?" she asked feverently. Her almost childlike need for reassurance and her complete faith in Alec, for the first time, gave Max a sense of the responsibility he carried.
Remembering her own childish dreams of a normal life she felt a swell of painful emotion as her eyes locked with Kats "Yes," Max reassured, as she fought to keep her composure. "Yes we will," she reiterated fiercely. "We will stay free and we will have the lives we dreamed of."
"And your child will be safe and free." Tears running down her face, Kat put her hand on Max's stomach. "You're so lucky Max."
"Yes, I am," Max agreed, losing the battle with her emotions tears on her own cheeks now. "I'm very lucky."
"I had to kill mmy baby," Kat stammered, her vulnerable, tragic eyes swinging to Max's. Max struggled to keep the shock from her face. "Steve said we were all going to run and that he would keep it safe but I, I couldn't take the chance that they would catch us. "You understand that, don't you?" she asked, her pain filled eyes luminous with tears as they gazed pleadingly into Max's.
"Yes, I understand that, Kat." Max understood it only too well, fear for her own baby overwhelming her. Suddenly, she needed to feel Alec's arms around her hear his comforting words of reassurance that their baby would be safe and to again feel his confidence when he told her that they could protect it.
"I knew you would, Max, I knew you'd understand. Nobody else did, but they weren't pregnant," Kat wept.
As Max put her arms around Kat she watched Todd detach himself from the wall and come over to them. Awkwardly, he patted Kat's back Yeah, they're all very close Max thought, thinking of her lost brothers and sisters and keenly feeling the ache in her heart that was always there whenever she thought of them.
Tears streaking down her own face, overwhelmed with the loss of her siblings and now fearful for her own baby, she rocked a grief stricken Kat.
When Todd had come to get him and Steve, Alec had known they were both upset but it was still a shock when he saw them huddled together, silently weeping in the middle of the warehouse. It was the quiet that was the most unnerving; it seemed to amplify their grief, he thought, as he watched the tears trail soundlessly down Max's face. This is probably good for Kat, he realized, knowing how closely bottled up and protective of her pain she'd been up until now.
But not good for Max. The scent of her fear was strong as he detached her from Kat. Turning into him, Max clutched him in relief. His arms went around her and as he murmured reassuringly in her ear she felt her panic start to recede.
His chin resting on her hair, Alec watched sadly as Steve led Kat away.
"Nothing is going to happen to this baby, Max, he reassured her, rubbing his check on her hair. "Nothing, he added emphatically. She was still clinging to him tightly, but she had calmed down and the scent of her fear was fading.
"What happened to Kat? she asked, her voice strained
They'd all tried to block this out, not even think about it, let alone talk about it. His own sense of failure was raw and ugly whenever he thought about what Kat had done. At the time, he had felt like he'd failed everybody and he had known how much worse Steve had felt. Or he'd thought he'd known. But now, with a child of his own to protect, he was finally really getting an understanding of just how bad it must have been for Steve.
"Tell me, Alec?" she asked again, squeezing him tightly, her hands moving under his shirt, her palms flat against the warm skin of his back she pulled him closer into her. "Tell me?" she insisted.
Max heard the emotion in his voice as he started to talk. "We were still young, they hadn't been mated for very long. Manticore always locked down females during their heat, but we always knew first. We had been really careful to keep them apart and get her into lockdown quickly, but we must have slipped up because she got pregnant."
"Because we were young, we didn't pick it up, didn't notice anything different. Kat was too scared to tell anyone. By the time she told Steve, she was four months pregnant. At the time, I thought Steve didn't know. But now I realize he must have." Alec thought about the changes in Max. Both her scent and her behaviour and about his instinctive recognition that his child was there.
Yeah, Steve had known. "But I guess the only way he could deal with it, given our instincts and his powerlessness to protect either of them properly in Manticore, was to pretend it wasn't happening. Anyway, by the time Kat told him and he had to deal with it, the only option was to run. He was going to try with her on his own, but the unit wouldn't allow that and we all decided to go."
"We all must have got tied up and preoccupied with planning and nobody realized how scared Kat was. She was petrified the handlers would find out and take her away before we acted. Terrified she wouldn't be able to protect the baby. When, when we found her, she was unconscious and the blood was everywhere. She'd used the barrel of a training rifle."
"The baby," she heard the emotion in his voice as he faltered and she tightened her arms around him. "The baby was just lying there in all this blood. It was so tiny, it didn't quite fill Steve's hand, but you could see it was a baby, it had tiny limbs. Kat was unconscious and bleeding and we didn't really have much time before somebody discovered what was happening. Tanya and I managed to get Kat to her cell and stop the bleeding. Biggs and Tav went with Steve, to try and find somewhere to bury the baby. Steve kept it together long enough to bury the baby, but then he reverted into his instincts and went primal. He killed a couple of guards and got himself and Tav shot. We managed to keep Kat out of Psch Ops. But Tav and Steve both got Psch Ops and reindotrination."
"And the rest of you didn't run because you didn't want to leave them?" Max asked sadly.
"Yeah," he agreed," But we were never going to get very far anyway, Max. There were too few of us they would have hunted us down to quickly. Tactically, it was suicide. Everybody knew that except Kat. Kat knew, Max thought sadly to herself as she hugged him. It did get a whole lot worse as they got older.
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Max looked around the compound at the press of bodies and the chaos of activity.
"We have about 1500 females as of last unofficial count this morning Max, and about 3000 males so our male to female ratio is coming up it's 2.1 now.
She's cool and calm again, her usual self, Max thought sadly, as she returned Kats warm smile.
"Yeah, from what I can tell, a lot of the women and children hadn't felt safe enough to come into the city, until they had the message from Alec to come to TC."
From what Max had been able to deduce from talking to the new arrivals, Alec had somehow found a way to send out a high frequency signal message giving co ordinates and telling people that TC was were they were going to make there stand.
"How did Alec manage to get the message out that's bringing everybody here, Kat?"
Kat looked at her speculatively. She didn't like that Alec wasn't confiding in Max and that the only information Max had was what she stumbled upon herself. Max was the alpha female here and she should not be excluded and the fact that she was being, whatever Alec's reasons were, was starting to piss Kat off. Their lack of communication would be a liability once the fighting started and they started moving their boundaries out.
Transgenic way never excluded women. In Manticore she had been alpha female and she would never have tolerated being treated in this manner. Neither would Max, have prior to her heat, but she'd changed. For the most part, Kat thought the change was positive. Prior to her heat, Max had been arrogant and uninterested whenever Kat as her 2nd, had tried to make her aware of things she should know.
Now, she was not only approachable, she was keenly interested in everything that was happening. Alec was making a mistake not including her. She had empathy and a quick understanding of problems that Kat knew would prove to be invaluable. But while, for the most part, Max had changed for the better, she had also become hesitant and unsure of herself. So much so that as the new women arrived there was confusion as to who was alpha. The older residents, who had known Max before her heat, still behaved as if she was. But the newer arrivals still recognised Kat from Manticore and because Max was no longer acting like an alpha female, it was confusing.
"How did Alec get the message out, Kat?" she repeated, interrupting Kats musing.
"He embed it in Logan's computer, Max. Logan already had the set up that ensured the signal would be untraceable for his Eyes Only broadcasts. Alec tapped into that."
Max gazed back at Kat in consternation. "I take it Logan didn't agree to this?" she asked dryly.
"No Logan never knew. Alec has been messaging out for the last year. High frequency messages only audible if you were Transgenic, set up to transmit every hour on the hour for whatever time period he loaded them for."
"What? But why…" Max trailed off looking round her. "But why are they all just coming now if he's been doing it for a year."
"The messages have been different. First, when he was just fresh out of Manticore, he coded it just for us, his unit telling us where he was and how to get here. It took us a couple of months to receive it because we did what we were trained to do and went to ground in the hills. But as soon as we came out of hiding and got the instructions we came here and settled in TC. A few months ago, before the killings got worse, Alec changed the message again, giving TC co ordinates out to all Transgenics. Last week when he took command, him and Steve loaded a new message, informing every body we were regrouping and launching an offensive.
"Is the message still being transmitted, Kat?"
"Yes, another week until it shuts itself down."
"But I don't understand how Logan didn't pick it up, he is an extraordinary computer hacker."
"Alec is better," Kat shrugged.
She wished Alec had told her, she thought, sadly. Other than everyday interaction, there was virtually not communication between them whatsoever. This past week, they had both been so busy with the influx into TC that she had in fact seen him so infrequently during the day that she knew he had to be avoiding her. At night, he made love to her and went to sleep. In the morning he made love to her and went to work. He no longer avoided her questions he just wasn't available for her to ask them. She had thought about whether they had talked much before they had mated and had come to the conclusion that whilst Alec had talked, and there had been a lot of sound, there had never in fact been much of anything important said between them.
Which was probably how she'd remained ignorant of so many things. She wanted to change that, she needed to change it, the less they talked the more distant and disconnected she felt from him, and the more despondent she was becoming. The sex was still good, she couldn't deny that, but she wanted more than that. The one thing she missed about Logan was the communication they'd had between them. She wanted it with Alec, but didn't know how to instigate it. Every time she tried to talk to him about anything serious, he would distract her with sex. She had come to believe that sometimes he wasn't even conscious he was doing it.
"So Kat, this meeting today, what is expected to happen here?"
"Alec and Steve expect us to talk to the women and get their agreement to let them form fighting Units without us," Kat answered dryly, raising her eyebrow.
"You don't agree Kat?"
"The male female ratio has come up 2.1 so the urgency for us to stay out of the fighting is less."
"Yeah, the urgency is less but there is still a need to protect the numbers of women we have," Max replied.
Kat looked at her thoughtfully, "so you think we should stay out of the fighting."
"Yeah, I do."
"Yeah, so do I," Kat agreed, sighing. "But I don't like the way they've gone about this."
"We don't need to be in the front line fighting units, but we do need to be in the support Units and we need to make sure they understand that," Max stated emphatically.
'Yeah," Kat agreed. "And the planning that they're doing, and everything else needs female input. In Manticore we were always included, they never went off on their own and discussed and decided shit like this, it's starting to really piss me off. I know that things haven't been easy for you this last two weeks, Max but you've got to pull yourself together and start standing up for us."
"What?" Max asked shocked, "Me, what? I don't understand what do you expect me to do."
"Your job, Max, you're the alpha female here and you need to start acting like you've got some ovaries. Women here expect to be involved in every discussion and decision the same way we've always been, not told about it retrospectively."
"Me? But I thought you were the highest ranked female here, Kat?" Max asked, completely at a loss.
"I was alpha female in Manticore," Kat replied, looking at her strangely. Shit, she thought, thinking about Max telling her that the things other transgenics knew and took for granted, Max didn't often know.
"Umm, Max you did know you're Alpha female didn't you?"
"No I…why would I, Kat? When I left Manticore, I was a child. I had no rank, how could I be? I thought I had no standing here whatsoever. I thought that most of you didn't even think I was a proper transgenic," she mumbled.
"You're alpha, Max. My instincts recognize it, as do everybody else's. But you've stopped acting like alpha female and it's getting confusing. New arrivals that knew me in Manticore see me defer to you, but because you're no longer acting like an alpha female, they don't know what's happening. Its unsettling and its working against us in that the males have gone completely off track and need to be pulled back into line, Max."
Max looked at her horrified. "So you're saying the other woman here aren't happy about being excluded either? They expect me to stand up for them? I've not been doing my job." Oh, fucking hell. I didn't even know it WAS my job.
"Yeah, of course we aren't happy about it. Does it feel right for you to be kept in the dark? You and I have been sent away like good little girls, to get the agreement of other women, about what the males think they have already decided. Fuck that."
No, it fucking doesn't feel right Max thought, indignantly. "Okay, Kat, lets get this meeting started and decide what we really want." Max feeling her uncertainty and her diffidence start to recede and her confidence flowing back, smiled at Kat as they made their way into the centre of the circle of women.
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"They've been in there a fucking long time now," Steve complained as he fidgeted in the yard while they were waiting for the women's meeting to finish. Alec leaning against the wall hands in the pockets of his jacket, his shoulders hunched against the cold, grunted in reply.
"If Max is onboard with no women in the fighting units, then surely, she's just gonna tell them that. End of meeting. What's taking so fucking long? I'm cold and tired," Steve whined.
"Dunno, Alec replied, fidgeting along side of him, in complete agreement. He was stuffed and needed to go to bed. How much longer where they gonna be, he thought exasperated.
"Here they come," Steve, declared eagerly, as the women started to trickle into the compound. "I suppose they'll be the last one's out," he complained.
Max smiled as she spotted Alec leaned against the wall, probably freezing but waiting patiently for her anyway.
"So all sorted?" he asked her.
"Yep," she smiled sweetly at him. " Just a few things to sort out first but we can do that tomorrow." Leaning up she kissed him chastely and put her arm around his waist as he slung his across her shoulders.
"Alec, did you know I was alpha female here?" She asked as they headed for their apartment
"Yeah, off course everybody knows that," he replied, looking down at her in surprise. "Ahh, but you didn't," he realized in sudden understanding as he studied her serious face. Of course she didn't, her instincts still couldn't recognise instinctual hierarchies. That was why it had been so easy to hide his own ranking from her.
At least he didn't realize I didn't know my job here and that wasn't something else he's kept me in the dark about, Max thought in relief.
"No, I didn't," she replied quietly, "and consequently, things I probably should have been doing I've left to, Kat, because I didn't understand what my roll was here."
"But you do now?" he asked quizzically.
"Yeah, I do now, Alec," she returned, her eyes on his.
"Well, that's good, then," he replied inanely, wondering what the fuck they were talking about.
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Alec looked up from what he was doing as Max and Kat and a number of the other women came into the room.
Quite a few women to convey a simple agreement, he thought uneasily, his eye catching Steve's.
"Hey, guys," Max greeted, as she and Kat sat down opposite him and Steve. Her glance falling in irritation to the maps Alec folded and put aside. Fuck, what is so damn secret, she thought impatiently, her eyes locking with his. Warily, he returned her stare.
Shit, no agreement. His eyes swung between Max the stony faced women now leaning against the wall.
His Commander face, Max thought, feeling increasingly more at a disadvantage and becoming uncomfortable as she met his blank faced stare.
"We have decided that we are in agreement with you. There are too few women to risk loosing any more, so we've agreed it is sensible to keep women out of front line fighting units." Solemn faced, she ignored Alec's brilliant smile and continued.
"Although we've agreed to no women fighting, we expect to be close behind you in the support units."
Alec caught Steve's sideways glance, they'd planned to have the women in backup units behind the infield support units, but somehow he thought this was not what Max had in mind. Max watching the interplay between him and Steve felt her irritation growing.
"Nor do we like the way this was discussed and decided by males before it was discussed with us. We don't expect that to happen again."
What is with these sidelong glances, you'd think he was negotiating with the fucking enemy, she fumed, as she ran her eyes over his impassive face.
"From now on, we expect to be involved in every part of our defence." She ended deliberately.
"Fine, if that's what you want." His face bland and emotionless Alec leaned back his chair.
This is what she'd meant when she'd said she now understood her role. He hadn't meant to exclude her, he'd just been avoiding what he didn't want to deal with. It obviously couldn't be avoided any longer, he thought with resignation. The tension in the room was palpable.
The secretiveness was bad enough, but this cold-faced formality wasn't what she'd expected from him and it disconcerted her, which made her feel defensive and that made her angry. "Oh, just one more thing. I will, of course, be in the field with you." She knew she was out of line. Knew that this wasn't the right time or place for this. But he'd made her feel uncomfortable and couldn't resist her impulse to goad him.
"No." It was flat, hard and not open for dispute. The minute he answered her, he knew he'd made a mistake. He should have just let it pass. It would serve not purpose to air their personal differences in public. Alec felt Steve shift next to him. Plus it will be damn embarrassing, he thought, as he braced himself for her reaction, his eyes now cold as they met hers.
Max's eyes narrowed furiously, as she prepared to tell him she would go where she fucking well pleased.
She felt Kat's sign to disengage against her leg. Glancing at her and the other woman, she remembered where she was, who she was representing, and why she was there and stopped in embarrassment.
"I'm glad we could agree," she returned formally, her eyes as cold as his as she rose from the table.
Alec watched her departing back with a mixture of relief and regret.
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"Who the hell does he think he is? He doesn't decide what I do or where the hell I go." As the words came out of her mouth Max knew they weren't what she was feeling. Her anger gone, she felt flat and miserable. Why couldn't he understand she only wanted to help? Why didn't he trust her?
"Yes, he does, Max. He is our military Commander. Nobody here is going to openly challenge him, we need him to make sure we stay free. In there, you were representing the women. He'd done his part, he had agreed to what we asked. He didn't have to bring this to us, he could have decided it on his own as the other males were pushing him to do. But he didn't because that's not Alec's way."
"Yeah, Kat, I know. Sometimes he just pisses me off and I react before I think." She'd felt at a disadvantage so she'd tried to annoy him. She knew it's wasn't reasonable to ask other women to send their mates off to fight without them if she wasn't prepared to do the same. But other women's mates let them know what was happening, she thought uneasily, and information helped alleviate fear, but Alec gave her no information and she hated the powerless fear that engendered.
Tonight when he got home, she was going to talk to him about how they didn't talk. Tomorrow, once she had attended the planning meeting, she would have a better idea of what was going on in TC and she wanted to be able to discuss it with him.
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Several hours later, lying alone in their bed, she realized he wasn't coming home. Her eyes fixed unseeingly on the ceiling, she wondered what she should do. She knew she'd been out of line in the meeting, but she had backed off, it hadn't been bad enough for him not to come home. Just where the hell was he anyway?
He'd intended to go home. In fact, he'd stood outside their door for five minutes, his hands in his pockets, just staring at it, wondering what he should do. If he went in, he knew she would want to talk and they would end up fighting. He was so tired he was moving through his life like a zombie all he did was work and sleep and worry. At least once she discovered it wasn't defence he planned to be engaged in, the worry of her wanting to fight alongside him will be gone. Exhausted, he turned and went back to his office.
It was midnight now and she knew she wasn't going to be able to sleep without him. Already she'd grown used to having him beside her. And when she shoved her mounting fury aside, she was worried about him. He was always tired lately and couldn't afford to miss sleep like this.
Unless he was asleep somewhere else, her eyes narrowing she wondered just where the hell else he might go to sleep. Fuck this. Furiously, she pulled on her clothes. She'd try his office first and if he wasn't there, then she would work her way through his whole fucking Unit if she had too. Fuming, she stormed angrily over to Command
Headquarters was deserted as she made her way across to his office. Of course it was, every body with half a brain was home in bed asleep where Alec should be. She could sense he was there before she opened the door.
He was already awake before she stormed over to the couch he was stretched out on. "Just what the hell do you thing you are playing at, Alec?" she demanded angrily. "Is this what's gonna happen every time I do something that pisses you off? Your just gonna sulk like a fucking child and not come home?"
"How would you feel if I did that? Just didn't come home cause you did something I didn't like?"
Sitting up he ran his hand distractedly through his hair. He hadn't thought about it like that, but he would be worried and angry. She's worried about me. Feeling encouraged he reached up and grabbed her hand pulling her stiff, resisting body onto the couch between his legs. Wrapping his arms around her from behind, he put his chin on her shoulder and his cheek against hers. "So if I do something you don't like, you'd still come home, Max?"
"Of course I …"she snapped back reflexively. Stopping as she registered the intensity in his voice, she repeated the question in her head. She didn't know why but this is important to him. He felt her relax back against him as she thought about it. "I can't imagine what you could do that would make me not want to," she answered finally, truthfully.
"Yeah right, Max," Alec snorted disbelievingly into her neck. " I'm the guy that three weeks ago you didn't have two civil words for, that couldn't do anything right and suddenly you expect me to believe that.
"Alec, you tried to kill me," she said quietly. She felt him stiffen as he sat up behind her, his body withdrawing from hers.
"Yeah, you're right, Max, I have no right to expect anything from you." She felt him try to ease her aside to get up. Leaning back against him she picked his hands up and put his arms back around her and folded hers over his.
"My point, Alec, was that even after you tried to kill me, I kept you around, even then, when you weren't my mate. So, yeah, I do expect you to believe that now you are my mate, I 'm not going to abandon you easily."
His heart really wanted to believe her, but his head kept telling him that three weeks ago she had been in love with Logan and on her list of priorities, he had probably ranked behind Norman.
"Why did you let me hang around then, Max?"
He knew he should leave it, knew that it could serve no purpose to dredge this up now, but his need to believe her was so strong that he ached for her to convince him.
"Because you needed me, Alec and I needed you" Despite whatever you did and despite however I treated you, that has always been true."
She didn't need for him to acknowledge it she knew he accepted it.
"You were the first of my own kind that I had spent any time with for over ten years. You became an important part of my life so fast that it scared me."
He was still behind her and his body was no longer tense. Quietly, she waited for him to respond. She now understood why he avoided talking with sex, the urge to just turn into him was strong. They would still connect but she wouldn't have to emotionally expose herself.
"Yeah, he agreed flatly "I knew I scared you."
She could feel his body start to withdraw again. Sighing, she leaned back again to keep him there, her arms still over his around her waist.
"What do you want from me, Alec?" she asked at a loss. *Tell me, just tell me and I'll do it, *she thought unhappily.
I want you to love me. I want to be able to trust you to trust me. I want you to let me do my job. And I want you to let me be you mate.
"Nothing Max, nothing more than your already doing."
"But you're angry with me, for what happened in the meeting? That's why you didn't come home." She could hear the desperation in her own voice and she felt like crying.
He hadn't intended to, but he could tell he had upset her again.
"No, you were right, we were out of line. We had no business leaving women out of our discussions," he answered truthfully, hoping to placate her.
Surprised, she cast about quickly, trying to get her bearings. But you always leave me out screamed in her head.
"So, you didn't come home then because I said I was going to fight alongside you."
When she said it like that, it sounded really pathetic and inane, he thought uncomfortably.
"I was only trying to annoy you, Alec."
"Yeah, I knew that." He agreed feeling increasingly more uncomfortable.
Well, why the fuck didn't you come home, then? Flashed into her head as she furiously tried to figure out what it was they were actually talking about.
She could feel his body moving closer around hers and now his lips were on her neck. Sex, she thought, exasperated, so I must be getting close to whatever it is. Holding tightly to his hands as he tried to free them, she furiously searched her brain for anything that might make sense.
"Its because I challenged you isn't it, Alec?" His lips stilled momentarily on her neck, "No I've already told you, you were right I was just tired and fell asleep on the couch, no big deal,"
Liar she thought, as he tried to free his hands again. It's not what happened in the meeting, she realized, its something else. She took a wild stab.
"Did you think I wanted to be in the field with you because I didn't trust your judgement?"
He didn't even pause as he kissed his way across the side of her face. That's it, she realized
"Do you think I don't trust you, Alec," she asked him again. Releasing his hands, she let him turn her into him as he lay back on the couch. Her mouth opened under his and he felt her knee slide between his thighs. Her tongue met his and her sweet taste invaded his senses. He could feel her knee gently locating itself under his balls. His hand on her leg he tried to move it lower, she resisted, and reluctantly he released her mouth.
"Max you need to move…"
"Do you think I don't trust you, Alec?" she interrupted, her eyes locked with his. She watched the emotions roil across his eyes frustration, wariness, anger, panic and finally distrust. And that's the one we'll go with, she thought.
He tried to move her leg again and she resisted. Fuck what a grip. " If you push my leg any harder, Alec, you're going to hurt me."
The pressure on her leg gone, his now furious eyes met hers. "If you try and get me off you, Alec, I'm gonna resist." She could see him weighing up his options. To help him in his decision-making, she put his hand on her stomach and smiled beatifically at him.
He scowled at her and removed his hand.
She felt him tense as she shifted to get more comfortable, her knee still lodged firmly between his thighs. They were practically eye-to-eye and his angry, hard eyes were quelling on hers. She smiled brightly back at him. He continued to stare stonily at her.
"Hmm if that's your intimidate the troops face, Alec, it needs work."
"This is ridiculous, Max, let me the fuck up."
"What's ridiculous, the fact that I have to put my knee in your crotch to get you to talk to me or the fact that I'm doing it?"
Silence.
She watched him settle himself back, put his hands behind his head and close his eyes. She knew it was ridiculous, they both knew if he really wanted to he could remove her, but she was not only counting on the fact that he didn't want to hurt her physically, but he also didn't really want to upset her either. It had been a safe bet, she mused checking out his face as he pretended to sleep.
She shifted her knee slightly. His eyes snapped open and his hand was on her leg again. She smiled disarmingly at him.
"Why don't you just answer me, Alec what harm can it do?"
Silence.
"Alright." Defeated, she removed her knee and waited for him to get up. He rolled onto his back and closed his eyes. "So are we sleeping here tonight then?" she asked after a short silence.
"I am. I suggest you go back home, this couch wasn't built for two."
"Do you mean our home that we both live in or do you mean, OC's, Alec?" Why did I say that, she thought in panic?
He hadn't moved, nothing had shifted in his face and his eyes were still closed, but she could feel she had his attention. Not wanting to escalate what had already gone incredibly wrong she waited with dread for him to answer her.
Silence.
Dejectedly, she sat up. "Okay, Alec you win. I'm going home. Maybe I'll see you around tomorrow," she added sceptically, thinking that unlikely, given his skill at avoiding her.
Again, she hadn't seen him move but his grip was vice like around her wrist. "You can't leave here in the middle of the night without an escort."
"I'm not leaving TC," she bit out furiously, tugging her wrist out of his gasp.
"Do you really think I'm that fucking limp that I'm gonna cut and run because you're a pig to me? You don't know me very well do you? I've got just as much right to be here as you and I'm staying. You aren't the only one with a job to do here."
Furiously, she stomped to the door. Alec, still reeling from relief that she was going back to their apartment and not leaving TC and wanting to calm things down but not knowing how, furiously racked his brains for something placating to say to her.
"I hope you enjoy you couch you immature idiot."
Not this again, he thought angrily, jumping up. "I'm not immature, Max I'm just not Logan and don't behave like I'm a hundred years old.
"Nobody expects you to," she stormed over and glared furiously at him. "It's got nothing to do with Logan. You're immature because firstly, you were childish and inconsiderate enough to not come home and secondly when I come here to try and talk you behalf like a fucking pig. That's why you're immature, its got nothing to do with Logan and everything to do with you." she fumed, poking him in the chest.
"And you can shove your stupid fucking planning meeting and your secrets. I've been doing perfectly fine without either of them. Kat will go to the meeting to represent us and she can relay what ever it is I'm supposed to be doing." Angrily, she slammed the door. Let him worry about it on his own, arrogant bastard.
She heard the door crash open and felt his hand on her arm as he halted her furious advance across command.
"Yeah, well so what if I was immature tonight, I wasn't all those other fucking times," he yelled, back at her.
"Yes, you were," she shouted back. "Some off the time," she qualified, her anger starting to fade. "I'm sorry for the other times, the times that you weren't." she added in her normal voice.
His anger gone, he let go of her arm. "Yeah, well it doesn't matter anyway." He didn't even know why he'd brought it up.
"It matters to me. I was scared. I'm sorry."
Shrugging, he fell into step beside her. Relieved he was coming home she glanced sideways at him catching his look. "Yeah, scared because I was attracted to you." His startled response took her by surprise. "I thought you must have know that Alec?" she said quietly.
"Yeah, I knew it, but you didn't."
"Yes, I did, I'm not a complete idiot." she insisted defensively. I told you, I was just scared."
He glanced sideways at her again. That she was finally acknowledging her attraction to him felt good, better than good, he thought, grabbing her hand.
"Yeah, it was all that touching that gave it away, I used to get touched more by you, when you were bitchin me out, than by women I'd taken to bed," he said teasingly.
"Yeah well a girls gotta get it where she can," she teased back
"Plus of course I had the transgenic scent thing happening and you always smelt so sweet,"
Flushing with embarrassment Max looked away.
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
"Can't you get to sleep either, Alec?" She'd been quiet for so long he'd thought she was asleep.
"No," he answered, winding the strand of her hair he was playing with around his finger. "Can't sleep"
"What are you thinking about?" She asked, moving up the bed until she was eye level with him, her head on the pillow beside his.
"Nothing in particular," he answered turning to look at her.
He had that preoccupied look he always had now days, the one that made her feel so excluded and distant from him. Sighing inwardly, she stared back at him.
"Why did you say you wouldn't come to the planning meeting, Max?"
"Cause I was angry."
He'd been thinking about this, he knew she was really eager to have her input and it didn't seem like her to blow the opportunity off just because she was angry.
"But I thought you were really keen to have your say."
She didn't want to fight about this again. "Well, yeah, I suppose I am, but if you don't want to hear it, then there doesn't seem much point."
Dejectedly, she turned her head away from him. She didn't want to talk about this, didn't want another fight straight on the heels of the last one. She had been feeling good since they'd got home. Finally admitting to him that she had always been attracted to him had been a relief, had made her feel like their was more honesty between them and this made her feel really close to him and she'd stayed awake to savour it.
"Lets not talk about this again now,"
Moving into him, she ran an explorative fingertip down his shoulder over his bicep and down his arm. Alec watched her eyes follow her finger down his arm and watched them swing back to his when he stopped her hand by twinned his fingers with hers. Something was bothering him about her indifferent flicking off of the planning meeting.
"How do you see your role in the meeting, Max?"
Her cautious wary eyes swung to his "Its late, Alec, I don't really want to talk bout this now, I want to…" she stopped talking and stopped kissing his shoulder her eyes swinging to his as his question registered in her head. He's talking to me.
"I didn't think I had a role," she answered hesitantly, "I don't know much about this sort of stuff yet, it's new to me. I was just going to listen," she mumbled suddenly feeling like an idiot.
Not wanting to loose the moment she rushed on "How did you see my role?"
She was just going to listen, she didn't think she had a role. Alec ran her words through his head. She was right, she'd been so long out of their world that her interference would be counter productive at this stage. He'd feared that if she had information, then she would have objections and then she and him would clash. By not telling her anything he'd tried to avoid that.
That hadn't worked, he thought disgustedly, thinking about all the shit it had created between them. In fact, avoiding her and dodging her questions, he was now realizing, had maybe been a waste of time.
"What if I have to make decisions you don't agree with, Max what then?"
"Well, when that happens, then I'll just have to change your mind," Her eyes sultry on his, she leaned over and rolled his lower lip between hers. "If it's a decision that's just between you and me." She finished kissing along his jaw.
Pulling back, her serious brown eyes met his now guarded green. "But if its about a decision you make here as Commander, then I will accept it, Alec. I never ever want what happened to Kat or Steve to happen to any one of us again," she said emotionally. We are all going to stay free and so is our baby and you will make that happen. I will not only accept every decision you make I will help you make them happen. That is how I see my role in the meeting".
Not only is she going to trust me, she's going to help me. His heart full, he pulled her into him. Cheek resting on the top of her head, he looked down at her slender bare arm as she hugged his waist and started to tell her what he was planning to do.
Max listened quietly as he talked. Once he started, it all poured out. This was Alec as she remembered him, full of words and sound. Except this was sound that did have meaning, worrying, gut wrenching, meaning, but he was telling her and she was thankful to be finally hearing it.
She was still and relaxed against him, and once he started to tell her, it was easy, a relief, really. He felt her arm tighten around him as he finished talking and his eyes met hers.
Max now understanding that the reason he'd not told her any of this before wasn't because he didn't trust her and thought she had nothing of value to contribute. But because he thought she didn't trust him. She felt a wave of tenderness as she stared into his cautious eyes, he'd been worried about causing strife between them. It shows he cares about me, it's not just about the baby, she thought. Maybe he even loves me. Her eyes lingered on his face. Like I love him, she admitted consciously, acknowledging it for the first time.
"It's a lot to think about, Alec and it's late. Lets leave talking about it until tomorrow."
'Yeah," he agreed thankfully, feeling exhausted and emotionally drained.
Max felt a flash of hot molten desire for him as she watched his slow languid stretch. Catching her eye, he grinned back at her. "You know what, Max, I'm feeling kinda tense," he stretched again, watching her as her eyes lingeringly followed his movement. "What you did to me the other night when I was worried, that really helped mellow me out, made it much easier to sleep."
She move into his side and angled her bent leg across his thighs, moving it until it was nestled against his balls under his now rapidly hardening erection "You mean when I did all the work," she murmured, moving her hand in slow circles on his stomach.
"Yeah."
"Hmm so I get to do all the work again," she murmured licking his nipple.
"Yeah." He growled low in his throat.
"But that was a special, a reward," she whispered into his ear.
He could feel her hot breath, her lips teasing as they lightly brushed his ear before moving to quickly away.
"For what?" he asked mystified. What did I do?" Whatever, if she told him, he'd do it again
"Nothing, you didn't do anything," she breathed into his ear again, teasingly brushing her lips across it.
"That was my reward, not yours." Her reward. His eyes fluttering languidly, overwhelmed with emotion and feeling that sense of closeness and connection he had only ever felt with her.
"Do you think," she nibbled and sucked her way around his pecs, "I deserve another reward so soon,"
Her hand was still moving on his stomach the back of her hand occasionally lightly brushing his erection
"Fuck, yes, Max, you definitely do." He needed her to want him like he wanted her, and at this moment she did, and he knew he mattered to her.
Her hot, wet mouth was sucking his nipple. Eyes glazing, he threaded his fingers through her hair and held her head on him.
She loved doing this, making him as hot for her as he could make her for him.
Her mouth was on his other nipple now. "Okay, where... do you… want me…to start…?" She murmured between bites as he nipped and licked her way across the first ridge of his abs, feeling them flex as she started to gently bite her way down.
Just his hand in her hair massaging her scalp and feeling his stomach quiver as she moved her mouth on him was making her hot.
"My ear, start with my ear."
"Okay," she agreed, her eyes widening with surprise as she started to kiss her way back up his body.
"Hmmm Alec, I know you like this," she whispered, her breath hot as she teasingly traced the arch of his ear with her tongue, "but I thought," she breathed, rolling his earlobe between her teeth, "there were other things you liked better."
Leaning his ear into her mouth, he lightly stroked his thumb along the length of her neck.
"Yeah. But this is special"
Curious, she pulled back to look at him.
'No one else does that like you, it's just between you and me," his lips moved lightly against her ear as he spoke. "Special," he murmured, smiling, his eyes warm as they held hers.
'Special, just between him and her' repeated in her head as she gazed back at him. How has it taken me so long to realize I love him?
"Yeah, special," she agreed. Brown eyes locked with green as she pushed him onto his back and nuzzled his ear "Now back to my reward," she whispered into his ear.
TBA